


Ménage à Trois

by calibratingentropy



Series: Family: Found, Fractured, and Reformed [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Universe, Colleen Holt Saves the Day, F/M, Keith has Three Parents, Keith's Father is Named Kyle, M/M, Mpreg (sort of), Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Poor Human Disguises, Pre-Canon, Quad-sexed Ovoviviparous Marsupial Galra, Sexuality Crisis, Stillbirth, medical complications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-05-05 20:23:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14626377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calibratingentropy/pseuds/calibratingentropy
Summary: When Krolia, sent to a far away planet for an important mission, sends a distress message that begs for backup, Thace answers the call. He feels woefully underprepared for parenthood, especially when a very confused alien is involved. Knowing that eventually, he and Krolia will have to leave isn't helping matters at all.Or: The story of how Keith's three parents struggled with raising him and being together, and finally figured out how to make it work, just in time for two of them to get dragged back into a war.





	1. SOS

**Author's Note:**

> I love alien biology, and I'm a sucker for "Thace is Keith's Galra parent" fics. But I also fell in love with Krolia's character the moment she appeared. So! The obvious solution is an AU where Keith has three parents, and this is their story. 
> 
> In this AU, Galra have four sexes, and complicated reproduction that usually involves three parents. Their eggs are fertilized and incubated internally, and then delivered into another Galra's pouch as partially developed joeys. The joeys are then nursed and carried in the pouch until they're big enough to at least crawl around on their own. So, essentially, Galra are space seahorse-kangaroos (and the females have dicks that are also birth canals/ovipositors, not unlike female spotted hyenas).
> 
> And in the first chapter, there is a high risk labor that should have been a medical emergency treated at a hospital, stillbirth, and non-sexual penile penetration (it makes more sense in context).

Recreational leave wasn’t simple to acquire or commonly granted. Most soldiers in the fleet would have taken off to their favorite vacation spot within two ticks of managing such a feat. Thace was hard at work, quintants later, but being in the Blades’ base had him more relaxed than he’d been in… Thace couldn’t even remember. Too long. 

His only regret was that none of the other spies in the fleet were able to join him. He didn’t know all of them by a long shot, but entirely against Kolivan’s warnings, the high level agents had found a way to help each other with the stress of their taxing positions by carefully arranging meetings and free shifts spent in trusted company. But Krolia had been sent to sabotage a scouting mission to a system beyond the edge of the Empire, and Ulaz was tied up designing and testing alternatives for Sendak’s new prosthesis. Thace didn’t regret the sabotage that had led to the loss of Sendak’s arm in the least, but he wished Sendak had lost more power within the fleet due to the crippling injury. Zarkon’s favor had protected the brutal Commander from the worst of it, and he was being granted a second chance in the form of a replacement that surpassed his flesh one. The other goal of delaying Sendak’s advance long enough for a rebel uprising to go into hiding had been achieved at least. 

The low chime of an incoming message pulled him from his musings and Thace set aside the cup of his favorite drink that he’d been nursing while monitoring communication channels in this sector. This wasn’t an intercepted message though; it was sent directly to the base, and the encryption style had Thace immediately on alert. 

Different encryptions signaled different kinds of messages and this one was a desperate request for aid, although not directly life threatening to their agent. Thace thumbed the comm on while he started the careful process of unentangling the encryptions. “Kolivan, sir? Urgent message from the field.” 

A tick later, the comm hummed and Kolivan’s curt request of sender had Thace scrambling a little faster on the decoding. Something unpleasant formed in the vicinity of his sternum and sank when he got that far. “Krolia, sir.” 

“Forward it to my office,” there was a pause and quiet hiss of the chair moving, “then come and finish the de-encryption here.” 

Whatever it was, Kolivan didn’t want to risk it being decoded in public, but also thought urgent enough to be left in the hands of a skilled decoder, which Kolivan wasn’t. Proficient, as they all were, but not on the level of any of the undercover agents whose lives and the future of the Blades’ depended on their expertise. 

Thace wasted no time, and hardly dared to breathe until he finished and the holoscreen popped up. He moved to get up, but Krolia’s image stopped him and with an incrementally more annoyed frown than his usual, Kolivan motioned him to stay. 

Krolia was wiping something beige off her face, part of some kind of disguise, from the look of her clothes and the flat, dull black of her mane instead of the usual shades. She grimaced and finally addressed the camera. 

“Mission successful, sir. I’ve confirmed it _is_ here, and the rest of the crew is dead. I’ve arranged for a reasonable cover story for my eventual return, but there’s… complications.” 

Thace bit back a curse, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Kolivan stiffen, when someone, _something_ , else entered the frame. A similar beige to Krolia’s disguise, bipedal, obviously sentient, _small_ , and embracing her from behind. 

The translator had trouble decoding the alien’s speech, but nuzzling her ear was an obvious gesture, and Thace watched with chilling realization at the tiny softening of her expression in response. Her smile was far less sincere as she reached up to cup the alien’s face and nuzzle back, while pressing another fingertip to the skin below her ear and turning her translator back on. “Don’t you worry, _sweetie_. Just trying to send a message home.” 

Thace didn’t know what the alien untranslated word was, but could guess from context that it was some kind of endearment, and she and her alien both laughed and simultaneously repeated some other phrase in the alien’s language. She shooed the alien away and her expression turned hard as she disengaged the translator again. Whatever she was about to say, she didn’t want her alien lover to understand. 

“His name is Kyle, and he tells me I had the bad luck to land far too close to the planet’s cutting edge scientific installation. They haven’t managed hyperspeed engines good enough for interstellar jumps yet, but they’re closer than they realize, and I won’t pretend they don’t have the technology to have spotted my escape pod when I crash-landed it. They haven’t found it yet, but they’ve mobilized a search…” 

She let the statement hang. Thace could guess what her exit strategy involved, which meant she’d have to base herself off the planet for some time while she cannibalized the scout cruiser’s hyperspeed drive to give her escape pod a one way trip back to the fleet. 

Krolia took a deep breath, and Thace could read her tension. “I need backup. Kolivan—“ She swore loudly, and fired off a quick reassurance in the alien tongue when the alien said something questioning. “I’ve conceived. It _shouldn’t_ have happened. I wasn’t due for brooding for another— and he’s so tiny! But it did, and… We all know I can’t stay, but I can give Kyle that much. I just can’t do it alone. By the time this message reaches the hyperspeed relays my mission placed and gets to you I’ll have… a handful of quintants at most. Don’t you _dare_ let missions get in the way of these children’s lives. Kolivan, please—“ 

The alien was back, having heard the distress in her voice, and the message cut off abruptly. Kolivan knocked over the chair because he stood up so quickly and turned his back towards the holoscreen quietly prompting a replay. 

“There’s no one we can spare. Not for as long as it would take. Not without putting those children right into the Empire’s hands—“ Thace had never seen Kolivan’s steely control break enough for the stoic leader to ear-emote, but his drooped. 

Thace knew his control had broken too, heart racing and gut churning with emotions that burned like acid, and gave up to let his ears push back against his head in distress. The logic was painfully, perfectly sound. The Empire’s rampant mistreatment of even the less obvious hybrids was the stuff of cautionary tales, but even if the joeys were pouch-weaned early, it would be… years. They were stretched so thin as it was, and couldn’t ask their spies to abandon assignments or their warriors to—

The solution hit so suddenly that he laughed, a sharp, high sound as much surprise as mirth. “Send me. Sendak will discard me, but my … urge to have children has already been established, fictional as it is.” 

He couldn’t believe he was offering this. Children were… the most wonderful and terrible gift any Blade could experience. His so-called urges had only been a cover for compassion when he couldn’t stomach killing a pair of younglings that had wandered across his path and then been caught at the kindness. The other lieutenant had accepted his explanation with snickering and promised not to gossip, but the news had been predictably all over the ship within a few vargas. 

Kolivan had turned to scowl at him, and Thace rushed to continue. “There’s a newer commander, Prorok, who’s both ambitious and proud. He has an established enjoyment of both siring and pouch-mothering, and I believe he could be convinced to take on a lieutenant with the same—“ Thace coughed around the word that tried to choke him, “—proclivities. He will be far easier to sabotage should we need to. And I’m already on recreational leave; it’s not unheard of for it to turn into a request for carrying leave.” 

The silence stretched and stretched, but then Kolivan shook his head. “Your bleeding heart will be the end of you someday. Go. But Krolia is to return as soon as feasible. I can’t lose _two_ of my best agents. And if the joeys can’t pass as the local species—“

“Understood, sir.” Thace saluted and was out the door before either of them could change their minds. 

* * *

The planet was lovely, Thace had to admit, and after the rushed trip in the smallest hyperspeed-capable ship they had, he desperately needed to stretch his legs. But he waited until what he judged was the best time to make a landing without attracting attention. Probably futile without cloaking, but he certainly didn’t want to give the local species more reasons to start looking for unusual things than they already had. The temperature was warm, but cooling rapidly when he found the structure that Krolia’s signature had been found in. All too easy to find the lone Galra on the planet—

Before he even got to the door of the place, some kind of basic projectile weapon was shoved into his face. The alien was _small_ , but very quick. Well, so much for Krolia explaining to the sire what she’d asked for. Thace couldn’t make out most of the words fired at him, but the translator at least picked up on “Hands up.” 

He obliged, not particularly wanting to start his stint as a pouch-mother with holes in him. But if his translator hadn’t absorbed enough of the language to work properly yet, he doubted the alien could understand him, so he simply said, a little more loudly than he would have liked. “Krolia.” 

“Thace?!” He was close enough for her to hear him thankfully, and she immediately shouted something, of which Thace only caught the alien’s name and ‘help.’ It still took two more exchanges for the alien to put his weapon aside and let Thace past. Krolia was crouched nude on the floor of the tiny building, panting with exertion as she strained. Her external birth canal dangled between her legs, flushed and engorged, but only small splatters of the nutrient rich amniotic fluid her uterus bathed the eggs in came when she tried to push again. They both swore at the same time and Krolia huffed out a tired acknowledgement. “Strip, you. There’s no time.” 

The alien protested loudly and was summarily ignored when Thace pulled off the soft top he’d worn for the trip instead of his regulation armor, and dropped to his knees in front of her. Her velvety short fur, almost indistinguishable from skin, was damp with sweat as he steadied her with his hands. “How long?” 

“Too long—“ She leaned forward to rest her forehead on his shoulder as a shudder went through her. “It’s not in the right position and I— I can’t feel it moving.” 

“What the _hell_ is going on here? Krolia—fuck, I don’t care anymore; the Garrison might be able to help; I’m not a goddamned doctor and if you tell me this asshole is I’ll eat my—“ 

Well, the contact between them had synced the translators, at least, but if the alien started interfering Thace would have to stun him. 

“Kyle, love, sweetie, shut up and stand the fuck down. You promised you’d trust me. I need him. I explained to you that Galra aren’t placentals—“ She was cut off when another shudder went through her. 

Contractions were usually an afterthought, helping to empty the uterus of the amniotic fluids, because the joeys were supposed to be able to move towards the birth canal on their own— This was not good news. Thace pulled down his pants and focused on unsheathing his cock without arousal to help the process along. He technically knew what to do for a stalled labor, but he’d never, ever thought he’d be doing it, or practiced the fine control or—

“What the flying fuck— That’s the biggest damn dick I have ever—“ The alien, Kyle, ground to a stop and then bristled. “If you think you’re going to fuck my girlfriend right in—“ 

“Kyle. Shut. Up.” 

It was odd, doing this without the flush of arousal, but made Thace all the more keenly aware of what he was feeling, as he slowly threaded his cock up her external canal. He found the cervix, dilated and— The lobes at the tip of his cock flexed as he concentrated, finding the blockage and feeling— movement. Weak and stymied by the blockage, but there. He managed to get a grip and pull as another contraction hit Krolia and she groaned. Thace lost the grip, vaguely annoyed at the continued chatter from Kyle in the background, but the next contraction and some pushing from Krolia was enough. The joey and a rush of fluid came out at once, but too still, too pale. Thace scooped it up, rubbing fluid out of the mouth and nose and trying to warm the little body. 

“Damn, he’s so small. That’s not— Oh my god, too early, I said it was—“ 

Krolia groaned again and pushed Thace’s hands towards Kyle. “The next one’s coming. Sweetie, just warm it, stimulate circulation. If we can get it to breathe and suckle it’ll live.” 

Then she was yanking the rim of his pouch rim out away from his abdomen and Thace yelped, thankfully relieved of holding the joey or he might have dropped it. The sudden motion was the cause more than actual pain, as the skin stretched obediently, and now that he wasn’t focused on trying to help Krolia deliver the first joey, he could feel his teats gone tight and tingly. His body knew there was a brood-mother present and delivering her joeys for him and was eagerly preparing for the next step, at least. 

When Krolia pushed him back, he went obediently, almost holding his breath in anticipation as she situated her birth canal. She grunted and he lifted his hands to support her through the contraction, but it was clearly easier, more productive, and a hazy, but short period of time later during which nothing else mattered but Krolia and her contractions, he felt a burst of sticky wet inside his pouch and something small squirming. This one was a fighter, so very alive and already trying to seek sustenance in spite of obvious weakness. Thace carefully shifted, sliding one finger into his pouch to help and— _oh_. 

He’d thought he’d been prepared for the sensation, knew it would be intense and fill him with a flood of bonding hormones, but it was ever so much _more_. He could feel the suction on his teat, feel the little spot of warmth and wiggling movement against the fur of his inner pouch. He gasped, instinctively trying to curl his arms around his now very occupied pouch, but Krolia was still crouching over him. She smiled, weak but sincere, and let herself flop down at his side, breathing heavily. 

“That’s it, I think. I don’t feel anything else.” She went still for a moment, just breathing, then twisted her head to look at her alien, who was alternating between gaping at them and trying awkwardly to rub warmth into the firstborn. 

Kyle’s voice was shattered when he caught them looking. “I don’t think he’s gonna make it. He’s so small, and human babies just don’t… I don’t even think they’ve got formed lungs this small.” 

Krolia keened her grief into the room and reached out. Kyle fell to his knees, only vaguely wincing at the impact, and embraced her one-armed. The joey was devastatingly still and pale between them, had probably been dead since a varga or two into the labor, and Thace couldn’t stop an answering keen from bursting out of him. He went numbly when Krolia pulled him closer, and although Kyle flinched at first, an answering arm wound around him when he embraced the pair. 

How long they remained cuddled around the dead joey in the center of the small building with the door wide open Thace didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter either.


	2. Destress, Distress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when originally writing this chapter I had an idea, but not a character who could fill the role, but then I realized that why make Colleen another scientist like I'd originally planned when I could make her a badass who saves the day? So I'd like to introduce to the fandom: Colleen Holt, super vet!

As the planet’s yellow sun rose above the horizon, they buried the dead joey and an egg, delivered as Krolia’s labor tapered off, with a horrifically underdeveloped embryo inside that never could have survived. But less underdeveloped than _differently_ developed, because Kyle told them it looked like a human embryo did at that age, and how long human offspring remained connected to their mothers through the placenta. Krolia had shuddered and muttered something about placentals being so terribly strange. Thace hadn’t offered comment, because he’d be carrying the joey now for a good deal longer than that, although the thought of having to make room _internally_ rather than in a pouch designed specifically to expand to hold the growing joey made him want to flinch away. So, yes, placentals _were_ a little strange. 

More pressing was figuring out how to navigate such a small space with three people instead of just two, especially when Krolia’s mane brushed the ceiling and Thace found himself ducking instinctively all the time, even if he was only just a bit shorter than she was. It was made with Kyle in mind, who seemingly was a good height for his species, but small enough for Krolia to tuck his head against her chest, and Thace found himself feeling more cramped than on the trip here and grinding his teeth at it more than once. 

But mostly he was distracted by food, and feeling the joey suckle and move in his pouch. He was absolutely starving all of a sudden, and knew it was because his body was being taxed by producing first milk, which in addition to nutrients was building the joey’s immune system, providing cells that would eventually become bone marrow and lymph nodes. 

Kyle was hovering, completely out of his depth, and muttering about being eaten out of house and home, but Krolia just laughed at him. It was strange to see her acting loose and free, instead of the restrained facade she had to keep in the fleet. Glimpses there had been rare and precious signs of trust but here… she was entirely herself. And soon, she would have to give it up and go back to the fleet, back to the masks upon masks and the constraints of expectations and the mission. Thace wondered if the thought bothered her as much as it bothered him.

The second day passed with the same uneasy cohabitation but Kyle protested when Krolia pulled Thace into bed with them. Thace wasn’t sure about it either, but the joey deserved having its brood-mother close before Krolia had to leave. He had to fight the urge to snarl at Kyle for being so close though; the human wasn’t (couldn’t possibly be) putting out the pheromones and scent that signaled being the joey’s sire, and Thace was swamped with new and powerful instincts that didn’t want any stranger near his joey. 

Kyle protested _that_ too and waved off Krolia’s attempted explanation with what Thace was sure qualified as a human version of a pout. “But _I’m_ the father, aren’t I? It’s not like he’s contributing any DNA or anything; he’s just a surrogate. Goddamn, how did I end up falling in love with a lady from a weird seahorse-kangaroo species, I don’t _even_ know.” 

Krolia rolled her eyes and Thace could feel the frustration coming off her. “You can have a surrogate brood-mother, but a pouch-mother is a pouch-mother. Sure, sometimes the sire is the pouch-mother, but it’s better if it’s someone else, because Thace _is_ contributing DNA, sweetie. The pouch-mother is responsible for the baby’s immune system and a few other things, and the more variety the better there.” 

Kyle threw his hands up and stalked off. “You aliens are so goddamned weird!” 

Krolia sighed loudly at his retreating back, and hooked her chin over Thace’s shoulder while he started the grooming the joey with a damp cloth and saliva, and shivering a little when the joey started suckling more enthusiastically. Was that kind of break between sucklings normal? He was careful not to disturb the amniotic fluid, now dried to a fine powder clinging to the pouch fur, because along with his own antibody-filled saliva, it served as a barrier to infection while the joey’s immune system was still unformed. She crooned softly to him and the joey, and then sighed again. “He’ll come around. You should have seen his reaction the first time we tried to have sex! He was so confused by me being some kind of ‘goddamned hyena’ as he put it. And complained about me lacking tits, can you believe it?” 

“What are tits?” Thace frowned as he forced his mouth around the unfamiliar word. Actually… “And what’s a hyena?”

“Human females do the nursing too, and their teats are positioned on their chests over soft pads of fat. There’s a few other placental species out there with a similar set up but ugh.” Krolia shuddered in exaggerated and playful disgust. “And hyenas are some kind of Earth animal. They’re still placentals, but their genitals make more sense than humans’ do.” 

“You mean human females don’t have—“ Thace couldn’t even finish. How did humans even manage? 

“Nope!” Krolia said, laughing at the face he was making. “Their cocks are shrunk down to useless nubs, and without any support, they just have loose flaps of skin down there, and a short, entirely internal canal. The ovotestes are also two entirely different organs, and the males carry theirs _externally_ too. Can you imagine?”

Eugh! “No.”

“But they are terribly sensitive. I can reduce Kyle to whimpering helplessly if I fondle them.” 

“I did _not_ ,” Thace muttered with fervor, “need to know that.” 

Krolia just laughed.

* * *

“Sex!” 

“What?” Thace was pulled out of his subdued worry over the joey not gaining weight. It had only been three days (and to his new consternation he hadn’t paid as much attention as he should have to the lectures about pouch-mothering) but one thing he did remember fairly clearly was that joeys should double weight in the first few quintants and he was pretty sure those weren’t much longer than the day-night periods of this planet. So the joey should have gained some weight by now, at least. But the joey hadn’t, and was taking longer and longer rests between sporadic sucklings. Thace thought that the joey’s breathing might be labored, but flexing his pouch muscles more often than instinct demanded to circulate the air didn’t seem to be helping. He didn’t know what to do. 

“I wanted to snap at him at first too after I conceived,” Krolia was elaborating, “but the sex helped me recognize him as a partner, even if he _wasn’t_ giving off any kind of correct pheromones. His scent is still weird and bland but my instincts recognize it now. And it’s normal and helps parents bond more closely anyway, so it’d be good for the joey too.” 

Thace had the grace to feel a little guilty over the bruise he’d given Kyle this morning because the human had gotten a little too close when Thace hadn’t been prepared for it (half-asleep in an early morning sunbeam, really) but her idea was suspect. “I don’t think that would work, because I’d be struggling too much not lashing out to really get in the mood…” 

“Well,” Krolia said with a wicked grin, and letting out a side of her that Thace had only glimpsed once, “even if it didn’t, it’d be fun to see if he could take your cock up his cloaca—“

She laughed and smacked him playfully on the shoulder when he grimaced. “Human males don’t even have a vestigial uterus. And I guess technically it’s not a cloaca; their kidney-analogues dump the secretions out through a different system rather into the end of the digestive tract like sensible species do.” 

Thace grimaced again just to spite her. “It’s not that. Not _just_ that. He’s so small I’d be afraid of breaking him.” 

“He’d probably be more interested in doing the penetration,” Krolia said agreeably, “because he claims I’m making him doubt being straight already whenever we fuck, whatever that means. Human metaphors and idioms are so mystifying sometimes.” 

Thace just snorted and quietly dragged his claws through her fur, initiating a grooming session. It was good for bonding, and honestly, he’d been feeling a little in need of more connection. She hummed and started doing the same, focusing on his ears until his control broke and they started flicking into her touch. Not that he was trying very hard to stop it to begin with, but old habits died hard.

They were finishing off a protracted grooming session, curled together and mostly nude on Kyle’s too small mattress on the floor when the human came home from his work, which Krolia had explained as contract building projects for human homes with an odd note of regret in her scent. His face immediately went dark but Krolia was quick to reach out. 

“Wait! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how much I like to groom you. It’s bonding—“ She stopped suddenly and grinned. “I think I’ve got the solution to Thace being testy. It’s grooming time, boys!”

* * *

Kyle had _not_ been agreeable to the idea at first, but Krolia had cajoled until he gave in. The human had a pleasant scent all told, even though he was lacking in pheromones, and Thace had to admit that Krolia’s idea had merit. Grooming did encourage and enforce group bonding too (while being less risky than sex, which helped his nerves a bit), and after a session, Thace found he could much easier tolerate Kyle curled up against his side while Krolia sprawled indulgently over both of their laps and idly licked at Kyle’s fingertips. But in spite of it all, discomfort had been building in his abdomen, right behind his teat—

With a start, Thace realized that the feeling was milk building up. When had the joey suckled last? Ignoring Krolia’s concerned sound, he checked his pouch, the joey was shivering and clearly struggling to breathe. …and not attached to the teat. A joey that young that disengaged from the teat was— 

Thace swore, fighting against rising panic as he tried to guide the joey back to the teat. Krolia bit back a distressed sound, and Thace suddenly smelled blood. She must have clenched her fists hard enough that her claws went through the skin of the palms. 

Kyle scrambled up, managing to knock Krolia off balance and elbow Thace in the side. “What’s happening? What’s wrong? Tell me!” 

“The joey is distressed. I don’t— I think it should have doubled in weight by now but it hasn’t.” Thace knew Kyle didn’t mean it, and managed to dial back baring his teeth in threat but only barely. The joey was more important right now.

“That sounds… about right.” Krolia broke off to swear a blue streak and even bothered to switch languages for it to get the right nuances. It was quite impressive, really. 

“Well, why the hell didn’t you say something sooner?” The accusation in Kyle’s voice stung, and Thace was faced with a clenched fist right in front of his nose.

“I’ve never done this before! I never even _planned_ — I barely know the basics and—“ Krolia’s weight kept him from trying to stand and face the threat that wasn’t really one. Any sire would be upset if his joey was dying. “And it’s not like there are any doctors on this planet!” 

There was one option, but Thace didn’t think it was had a good chance of success. He looked at Krolia and knew she’d had the same thought. She swallowed against the fear souring her scent. “Would it survive the trip?” 

“I don’t know,” Thace admitted. Hyperspeed wasn’t the easiest on the body for any species. It usually wasn’t actively _dangerous_ either, but with the joey so weak… “Do we have a choice?” 

Krolia turned towards Kyle, clearly back in mission mode for the moment. “You were saying before that your Garrison had doctors.” 

“Human doctors!” Kyle ran his hands through his mane so hard that strands came out between his fingers. “I don’t even know if they could handle kangaroo aliens— Or.” 

He stopped. Took a shaky breath. Grinned in a way that was more hysterical than happy. “But there’s someone who might know. I know she’s one of the vets the zoo keeps on call.” 

What was a vet? The translator couldn’t come up with a guess. Kyle was off to grab his phone, and Krolia only shrugged at Thace’s unasked question before curling herself around him and pressing her hand over the one he was cradling the joey in. Still alive, but each pause between a breath was nerve wracking. 

Still, even without a guess, Thace kept his ears pricked towards the sounds from Kyle’s phone. After what Thace assumed was a standard greeting for accepting audio communications, the voice on the other end asked how they could help Kyle. 

Kyle promptly started pacing as he talked. “Is Colleen Holt available? It’s an emergency.” 

When the voice tried to suggest some other person, Kyle actually did the best impression of a real snarl that Thace had seen from the human yet. “No! It _has_ to be Colleen. I don’t trust anybody else there with this.” 

He gave his name when prompted, and held the phone away from his ear when something Thace assumed was music was pumped over the line. If that’s what all human music was like, he never wanted to listen again. Finally another voice picked up the conversation. “Kyle Kogane, I _know_ for a fact that you love machines too much to keep an actual living pet, so what the hell kind of trouble did you manage to get into now?” 

“Colleen! Would you believe it was—“ Kyle paused and swallowed, “something my girlfriend brought into my life?” 

“I barely believe a woman’s caught your attention long enough to get to the fourth date, much less move in with you. Tell me why you’re really calling.” 

Thace turned a disbelieving look on Krolia and she just shrugged and whispered. “How did you think I knew that they’re so close to achieving hyperspeed? He really was just after getting his hands on my pod at first, and I was just using him for parts and information but I guess we grew on each other.” 

But the conversation was continuing without them with Kyle refusing to say what he wanted. The voice over the phone’s subpar speakers was overtaken by crackles that Thace guessed was a heavy sigh. “Look, I’ll help you if only because my husband thinks you hang the moon, but if you don’t give me some kind of clue here, I’ll have no idea _how_ to help. Stop being evasive and tell me why you’re calling a veterinarian.” 

“Look,” Kyle said, starting to sound a little panicked, “I’ll pay whatever bill you want to charge me for this. I just need you to tell me what to do, okay? Out in the desert, I found—uh, he’s a joey, I guess you’d call it? But he ain’t nursing from his mom, or breathing right and I don’t know how to fix it.” 

“A joey?” There were sounds on the other side of the line, incidentally picked up most likely. Footsteps, and a slamming door. “Kyle, don’t tell me you somehow ended up with Australian wildlife in your little house. Unless you’ve done some serious construction on the thing you’re very ill-equipped to even— They’ve been illegal as pets in this state for over a decade besides!” 

“I’m not going to tell you I’ve ended up with Australian wildlife, but there’s a definite pouch and the baby is tiny and hairless and… uh, mostly limbless, so I’m pretty sure he counts as a joey. And no, he’s not a possum either.” 

“What do you even _have_?” 

“Hell if I know. But a joey’s a joey, right? Just tell me how to get him eating and breathing right again.” Kyle was raising his voice, letting himself show his frustration and fear. No way would other person agree to help, Thace thought.

“You’re impossible, and you owe me _so much for this_ , got it? I’ll be there in forty.” 

“Wait— You can’t— Dammit!” Kyle just stared at the phone for a moment after the line went silent, and then he shrugged. “Should take at least an hour to get out here, so there’s that, I guess?” 

Krolia left Thace’s side to stalk over to him. “Who have you convinced to come out to your house, and why should I not gut them on sight?” 

With hands up, Kyle backed away. Smart choice. “Her name’s Colleen Holt, and even if humans aren’t her area of study, I’d trust her to fix me up if I was hurt over a lot of other doctors I can think of. Her husband is one of the leading scientists of the Galaxy Garrison. We were pretty good friends back when I was with the Garrison myself and honestly I trust the both of them. I figure if anyone has the breadth of knowledge of all different kinds of babies and how they work to put together how to help out space aliens from scratch, it’ll be her.” 

“We didn’t come here to be first contact for your species,” Krolia hissed, “So how do I know we won’t have the attention of every person on this planet in an hour?” 

“I can’t promise that,” Kyle said finally, “but she’ll take the existence of aliens better than most, and we have at least until she’s done treating our baby to convince her not to tell her husband about it.” 

That was not reassuring, but Krolia’s mission expression broke and went soft at the ‘our’ and while Thace’s mind argued against the idea, his heart was willing to take the risks for the joey’s sake.


	3. Colleen Holt Saves the Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter for everyone! 
> 
> Fun Facts:  
> \--In this AU Galra don't process sugars well. They use a completely different chemical composition for cell metabolism/energy storage and transfer, and the common sugar formulations found in Daibazaal creatures/flora are quite rare on other planets. So the indigestible sugars tend to build up in the body systems, and can interfere with cell functions and bind to enzymes and just generally cause chaos. In adults, toxic levels are harder to reach, and they have means of getting rid of the poisonous sugars, but joeys and children can get very, very sick extremely fast.

Thace wasn’t sure of the equivalency of time just yet, and he was distracted by counting the joey’s every breath besides, but it definitely wasn’t an hour before there was the sound of a vehicle outside. Kyle swore, and Krolia had her blade out and extended before the sound of the engine even stopped. 

Then the door slammed open before Kyle could even reach it, and there went Thace’s very last nerve. His blade was still in compact mode, but fly it did. Only to imbed itself into the doorframe where an invading Galra’s throat would be, and much too high for the slender and significantly shorter than Kyle human that was barging in. The female, from the scent of her, had the good sense to freeze, wide-eyed and hardly daring to breathe. Krolia put herself firmly in between the intruder and Thace, giving the human a very good look at her. 

Kyle cleared his throat, and carefully took whatever it was that the new human brought in with her out of her hands, fingers brushing hers. Good, the nanomachines would start working on a translator for her. “Hi, Colleen. Like you to meet my girlfriend, Krolia, and her— I don’t even know, Thace.” 

The other human raised an eyebrow, glancing side-eye at Kyle, but most of her attention now flicking between between Krolia and Thace himself. Thace knew his ears were pinned back and didn’t even try to bring them up to neutral. Very quietly, she asked. “Am I… seeing what I think I’m seeing?” 

“If you’re thinking ‘aliens from space’, yeah. Krolia crashed here about four months ago now? Thace just got here and… baby.” Kyle winced and reached out to put a hand on Krolia’s forearm. “Put down the sword, honey. Colleen’s good people, and she’ll never let me hear the end of this, probably, but she _will_ help.” 

Krolia bared her teeth at the stranger but let the blade return to compact mode and sheathed it. “Anyone with sense should know better than to startle a mother, especially a new one with a sick joey.” 

After a long, tense moment where confusion abruptly shifted to surprise, Colleen gave a solemn nod. “How can I suddenly understand every— Nevermind. I can respect that. My fault for thinking that haste would make up for startling whatever wild animal this dumb-ass brought into his home.” She jerked her thumb at Kyle.

“I love you too, Col,” Kyle muttered. “I’d like to think I wouldn’t be that dumb.” 

“No, you just took an _alien_ into your home,” Colleen said as she took a step into the room, watching Krolia closely. “It amazes me how some of the smartest people in the world completely lack common sense.” 

That got Krolia to bark a laugh. “I like this one, Kyle. She knows how to put you in your place.” 

“Speaking of places, Kyle, you should know what an oxygen tank looks like by now, so get your ass out to my truck. I’ll need that and—“ Colleen was still talking, but the translator wasn’t picking up half of it. Probably her species’ medical terms, but that didn’t make not knowing any easier.

Thace tuned it out to try to get the joey to take the teat again. All he got was a weak squirm and another labored breath. If the joey couldn’t attach and start suckling again, the joey was certainly going to _die_ , and Thace couldn’t— If the bond was so strong already, how was he going to be able to leave, even if the joey did survive long enough to be pouch-weaned? 

“Can I see my patient?” Colleen was addressing Krolia though, gaze directed at her stomach, which was only covered with one of Kyle’s spare shirts that she’d thrown on during the wait, stretched tight. 

Thace could hear the eye-rolling in Krolia’s tone, even if she had her back to him. “ _Placentals_. You’re looking at the wrong mother. Thace is the one carrying.” 

“Wait, he’s…? _Shit!_ ” Colleen was walking towards him now and Thace fought the urge to snarl. She was here to _help_. She gave him a smile, running a hand through her short mane. “Did I just make the worst first impression by misgendering you? That was unprofessional of me.” 

Krolia knelt next to him and started grooming around his ears. It helped a little. Her voice was tight, but the tone wry in spite of it. “Hard to tell with the translators! And humans just have two sexes anyway, like a lot of placentals, so your language is weird and inefficient for describing things like that. If it helps, other Earth creatures Kyle has tried comparing us to are seahorses and hyenas.” 

“Ohhhh, okay. I might have the wrong idea, but less talking, more medicine. Let me see the joey.” It was impressive how quickly she switched to the kind of look that Thace had always associated with doctors.

Letting her take a look was harder, because every instinct screamed for him to keep the joey away from the threat that a stranger represented, but Thace pushed it aside after a few ticks of struggling, and pulled his pouch skin out enough to let the joey be seen where he was cradling it as close to the teat as he could. 

Colleen stared at the joey’s pale pinkish beige skin, and then looked up at them, and then glanced back at Kyle who was dragging stuff through the door. “Do I want to know why this looks a lot like a human fetus?” 

Krolia shrugged. “My brooding period snuck up on me.”

Thace found the energy to prod at that omission there. “Your brooding period sneaks up on you _every time_ because you never pay attention to the signs.” 

“Surprise?” Kyle carefully set his load on the floor beside Colleen. “I had no idea hybridization was even possible, or I probably would have suggested a condom.” 

Colleen actually hit him on the back of the head, although lightly enough that it would be almost impossible to cause damage. “Without a thought of cross-species communicable diseases or anything else that might warrant caution. Typical.” 

She wasted no more time with banter, and Thace had to brace himself, but he had to admit that she knew what she was doing within the limits of possibility. He didn’t envy her dealing with an entirely new species, especially with him playing the part of anxious pouch mother. 

Once the joey had oxygen being fed into a little cone shaped hood around its face, it did start looking better, and breathing easier, but that didn’t do a thing about the weakness. Colleen was chewing on her lip with her dull teeth. “Honestly, I’d suggest an incubator and formula—“ 

She rocked back from the force of both Thace’s and Krolia’s snarls. “But! I get it. I do! No taking away the baby. And I have no idea what would be a good substitute to begin with. Since you both objected to glucose… Well.” 

An interesting red flush came over her skin. “I guess we go to the source? I’ve got a syringe and some tubing small enough to bypass the fact that he’s too weak to suck and swallow on his own, but the question becomes getting the milk.” 

“Give it to me; I can do it.” Krolia thrust her hand out and Thace grimaced at what she probably had in mind. 

But if it would save the joey… He wasn’t going to let this all pass without comment, however. “You couldn’t have gone and conceived back among the fleet?” 

If Krolia had inherited mobile ears, Thace just knew she would have flicked one to the side in a shrug. “Eh, I’m a rebel.” 

It worked. Thace cracked a thin smile. “Rebel more conveniently next time.” 

She nipped at his ear-tip in reprimand but it was undercut by her laughter.

* * *

It turned out _exhausting_ because such a young joey should have been suckling almost constantly, but with Krolia’s and eventually Kyle’s help, they regularly got his milk down the little tube and into the joey every few dobashes. And it _worked_. The joey got stronger, and over a period Kyle claimed was two weeks, had greatly increased in weight and size, catching up to where Thace was pretty sure it was supposed to be at this point. 

Colleen had also proven herself both helpful and discrete, although she’d complained at first about keeping things secret from her husband. She’d understood when they’d explained their fears, especially with the joey being so fragile, and agreed to keep her silence. Kept it she had, and showed up almost every night for a checkup and to give advice.

The joey had started suckling on its own as the sun rose and was showing no signs of disconnecting from the teat again so they didn’t need to keep up the feedings. Finally! Thace let himself collapse on the mattress in the sunlight to get some much needed sleep. The tube feeding oxygen into his pouch was still there and uncomfortable, because the joey still got distressed without it, but it was a small price to pay for the joey’s survival, especially now that he’d coated it thoroughly enough with saliva (Colleen had initially freaked out at that, but then demanded some of his saliva to run tests with when she found out about the antibodies) to tolerate its presence near the vulnerable joey. He was fading into a deep sleep when movement above him brought him back out of it. 

The bonus to the ordeal was that his instincts had fully accepted Kyle to welcome his presence near both him and the joey. So instead of being filled with tension and instantly on the defensive, Thace blinked up at the human with muzzy contentment, and lifted himself up without thinking to nuzzle along Kyle’s neck and jaw. 

He got laughed at, and Kyle ran his fingers through Thace’s mane in his best impression of grooming. “What is it with you guys and the grooming thing? I was just checking on the little guy before work.” 

Thace leaned back, suddenly glad that humans couldn’t scent embarrassment. He was just… not going to tell Kyle that that kind of nuzzling was _much_ more intimate than simple grooming. That was a good plan, and saved him from explaining that he hadn’t been fully awake and didn’t really mean the gesture for what it was. Probably. Not yet, at the very least. Thace was still unsure if he wanted to get into a sexual relationship with his joey’s sire, although his instincts were warming up to the idea. But if Kyle was going to check on the joey, “you can give it some grooming. Should be time to stimulate its bowels again.” 

Kyle looked very put upon as he went to the sanitization unit that Krolia had moved from the shuttle and jury rigged to work with Kyle’s house’s energy supply. Some Galra insisted on being old fashioned and using saliva and fur for all a joey’s grooming, but Thace personally thought that was ridiculous, especially for stimulating the bowels. A sanitized cloth with carefully formulated joey safe antimicrobial solution did the job just fine and didn’t leave him with a dry mouth or in need of washing himself. 

“You know,” Kyle was saying as he came back with the cloth, “I should have _months_ yet to mentally prepare for baby care, but no, you aliens start right in on the shitty part. Pun intended.” 

Thace just huffed and grabbed Kyle’s wrist. The man had washed his hands in the same solution, but he was still a little twitchy about others’ hands in his pouch. A little saliva wouldn’t hurt anybody, and the solution was made to have a pleasantly salty-bitter flavor for precisely that reason. “Think of it this way, you get to be more involved in its life right from the start.” 

Kyle’s fingers twitched when Thace licked at them. “Okay, I gotta ask. Why do you call him “it?” He’s a person, not a thing, even if he doesn’t really look like a person just yet.” 

Thace had to stop for a minute to consider that. “I think that might actually be an issue with the translators, and the difference in your language and ours. Unless your language has a pronoun specifically for the dependent life stages of younglings? Eggs, joeys, larva, fetuses and similar.”

“Uh…” Kyle’s expression went distant for a moment. “Nope, and I can’t think of any that do either, but hell if I know anything ‘bout most of the languages out there. We just have the usual ones. I, we, you, he, she, it, they. You know?” 

Thace couldn’t help but laugh. “Galran has several times that, and most must also be inflected for differences in rank, social status, and personal relationships. The translator always has trouble with pronouns and other languages, so I’m not surprised. The programs draw on our own knowledge of our native languages, and learning the one that’s being translated to helps with the problem, but can’t invent new pronouns when there aren’t ones already there.” 

“Huh, so, if I get what you’re saying, you’ll use a different word for him once he’s out of the pouch.” Kyle tried to pull his hand back to run through his mane probably, because he did that a lot when he was thinking, but Thace wasn’t about to allow it. Those hairs hadn’t been washed in the proper solution. 

So he started licking again, taking the fingers into his mouth to make the process go faster. “The word is ‘they’ and typically used for a child up until they differentiate their sex during adolescence.” 

Kyle’s scent changed abruptly, and his pupils had widened as he’d focused on the sight of his fingers in Thace’s mouth, but Thace couldn’t figure out what it meant. He was still learning what a human’s baseline scent was, and it didn’t seem that they used scent as nonverbal communication at all. But Kyle shook his head when Thace released his hand, and went to work. Even if Thace was used to it by now, it was so incredibly intimate to have someone’s hand in his pouch and he shivered a little. Kyle made a little bit back sound and shook his head again as he groomed the joey exactly as he’d been shown how. 

Then he coughed. “So what do you mean by differentiate?” 

Thace looked at him curiously, wondering about the odd reaction more than the questions, but the questions he could at least answer. “When a young Galra’s sex settles and their genitals grow and change to assume adult configuration and function, of course. Don’t humans do the same?” 

“I, uh, sort of? But it kind of sounds like you’re saying you don’t know a kid’s sex until puberty.” 

Oh, right. Many placentals had an easily determined sex at birth. “Essentially, yes. Hormones the brood-mother releases during her pregnancy do influence which way it’s likely to go, but even if hormones and environment all point to one differentiation, surprises still happen.”

“But— I mean, what about—“ Kyle withdrew the dirtied cloth and wrinkled his nose at it, then sighed in apparent self-defeat. “You guys are just so damn weird, you know that?” 

“I recall you saying that once or twice,” Thace said dryly, as he inspected the cloth. Looked and smelled perfectly normal. Good. But— Thace sniffed again, noting a faint change in the air. Oh! The joey had begun releasing scent cues, if weakly. That would make care much easier in the future. Right now, it was so important that the joey was full and contented and in no distress. 

Kyle had gone to clean up the cloth to be resanitized, and he was talking as he went. “You know, I’m surprised he hasn’t made a mess in your pouch yet. Or pissed— Actually, he’s never pissed that I’ve seen. That… normal?” 

Thace laid back down, fighting back a yawn. “Thankfully, healthy joeys don’t eliminate without cloacal stimulation, which is why they need such frequent grooming. That usually lasts until they have established both conscious and subconscious control of their bowels. And yes, that’s normal for Galra. Our kidneys excrete the waste products directly into the bowels to be eliminated with the other wastes. I, for one, am very glad our joey has proper kidneys instead of human kidney-analogues.”

“That’s—“

“Weird?” Thace asked, fighting sleep in order to tease. 

“Nah, useful. Birds and lizards do it, and biology ain’t my thing, but I’m pretty sure it reduces fluid loss and stuff. My baby boy— baby girl? Dammit, that one _is_ weird—“ Kyle stopped and got himself back on track, “will probably be more comfortable in this desert than me—“ 

A pillow hit Kyle square on the head. Krolia’s voice was a sleepy grumble, from where she’d dragged the shuttle’s mattress into one of the less well lit corners. Sunbeams were for pouch-mothers who needed the extra help generating warmth, she’d said. Right now she was grouchy from being awoken, and her snarl fought with a yawn. “Now is sleep time. Stop talking.”

Kyle laughed about it all the way out the door. “Work time for me, so don’t make anything explode, okay? I’ll be back later and Colleen is coming by for a checkup after dinner.” 

Thace wanted to ask what had prompted the explode comment, but it was too late and sleep claimed him moments after Kyle was out the door.


	4. Children Say the Darnedest Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Almost) six-year-old Shiro is adorable. That is all. Also Kyle is having a sexuality crisis because his understanding of sexuality is that it's set in stone (even though it can be fluid), and because as understanding as he tries to be, he has very little actual experience with transgender issues (and even though that doesn't really apply to Galra, to a human perspective, it can be hard not to make comparisons).

They fell into a routine as weeks and then months (well, two and a half) passed without incident. Colleen visited at least once a week for a checkup, and shared tips on mothering that mostly made sense. Kyle worked most days, and got dragged into a grooming session every evening before dinner. Krolia went back to working on repurposing the hyperspeed drive after dark and joined Thace in long naps in the mornings. The joey suckled and grew, and _grew_ , rounding out Thace’s pouch enough that he _looked_ like he was carrying, and making him careful of his balance. 

And Thace was _bored_. It had been almost pleasant at first, but Thace had been so used to being in constant motion that the novelty wore off quickly. He took to gentle training and exploring for a while after the joey didn’t need the additional oxygen anymore, but there was only so far he dared go even without being literally tied to something else.

Colleen took to trying to teach him English after that, with Krolia’s sometimes dubious “help.” It made sense to learn without relying on the translator, and it wasn’t a difficult language, per se. Just a very different one. Thace could see it causing a headache in the fleet. Words didn’t change when talking to superiors, and woefully broad pronouns aside, there was no way to identify oneself without saying things explicitly. The closest humans had was accents and dialects that indicated where they were from. The writing system was simple enough, at least, and Thace hoped to work his way up to reading the paper that Kyle liked to bring back daily. If nothing else it would keep him abreast of current events on the planet. 

But he was still bored, feeling almost anxious now that the joey was bigger and better able to withstand threats. And that was how he ended up in this mess. 

This mess being what he now knew was a humans’ maternity wear and an “adventure” to something humans called the movies. The term itself didn’t translate but Thace had figured from context that it was recordings projected on a large screen for entertainment purposes. The garment he’d been stuffed into was nice to look at, decorated with examples of Earth’s flora against a dark blue, but where it should have gone to a human woman’s mid-calves, it barely reached Thace’s knees. To hide his legs, he’d been given something annoyingly delicate called pantyhose in a matching blue and he’d tore three pairs before getting the last on successfully, even being careful with his claws. The only human footwear a quick search had found that even fit him was a pair of big, black boots, decorated with chains, buckles and other bits of metal. On seeing them, Colleen had promptly cackled and a varga later presented him with a leather coat and gloves in a similar style that she’d gotten from somewhere in town. She fussed with his mane, slicking it up into spiky tufts with stiff-drying gel, but thankfully didn’t go through with dyeing it, and called the look “a little punk rock” whatever that meant. 

The makeup that Krolia used to hide her natural coloration didn’t work quite as well on Thace whose fur was longer but less thick, and irritated his nose a little besides, but it was all they had, and once it had been dusted thoroughly over his fur and skin, Colleen had declared it passable from a distance. The contacts they both had to wear to disguise their eyes were torturous, but also got Colleen’s approval. As what Colleen called a ‘finishing touch’ decorative chains were looped around Thace’s neck, and baubles were clipped to his fur, right about where the lobes of a human’s ear would be. With his mane and the fur below his ears teased to fluff out even more, it was almost believable that he had ears under there, rather than where his ears actually were.

Of course, after giving the joey a thorough grooming that he hoped would last it until the venture was over, because the dress made it hard to access his pouch, Thace discovered that he’d ripped the pantyhose yet again. When he made motions about removing them, Colleen actually stopped him. 

“Aesthetic! Here, we’ll just add a few more to make it look intentional, and if anyone asks, just say you’re wearing purple ones underneath!” Colleen’s enthusiasm did nothing to convince Thace that this would end well, but it was a chance for something new, and he was stir-crazy enough to take the risk. 

He couldn’t help leaning in to Krolia, who had dressed in leather and denim with brightly colored adornments instead of metal ones, and whispering. “There is no way they’ll believe we’re humans.” 

“You’d be surprised. Dressed like this, a lot of them assume I’m a biker chick, which I understand to be some kind of wandering warrior of their roadways, and pass off oddities as being that. You look like a warrior too, so don’t worry so much.” Krolia’s grin was all teeth as she passed him some kind of goggles with dark lenses. Less goggles and more…

“Sunglasses, they’re called. They block some of the light, but mostly I think humans use them to be intimidating. They’ll also hide the bit of eye-glow that’s leaking out of your contacts.” 

Since that was the case, Thace allowed it, and it wasn’t as bad as he would have feared for his vision. He sighed, letting his scent speak for him about his reservations, and Krolia put her arm around his shoulders, before leaning in to nuzzle his cheek. Intimate, inviting. Probably would amount to nothing because humans were apparently monogamous, but Thace was smiling in spite of himself and twisting to return it when there was a click. 

Colleen had her phone out and was grinning like she’d just won a satisfying battle. “For posterity! You two are adorable.” 

Krolia laughed. “Follow my lead, Thace. This is a very important human gesture of contempt!” 

She held her fist out, palm up, and then extended her middle finger towards Colleen. How it displayed contempt, Thace wasn’t entirely sure, but he played along, laughing. Colleen got another click out of her phone before they shared an unspoken agreement to take it away from her. 

Kyle walked in to a scene of Krolia holding Colleen’s phone above her head while the human woman tried to leap up and reach it and Thace hovered, thoroughly enjoying himself and making sure neither of them got hurt in the antics. Colleen was a friend, after all. 

He raised one hand, opened his mouth, closed it, and then turned right back around. “I’ll just see you ladies at the theater— Shit! I mean. Oh dammit, I’ll just go.” 

There was a beat of silence, and then Krolia just said, “Go.” 

Thace knew what she meant, even if her scent hadn’t added the nuance. He would have gone anyway. Kyle was standing next to his motorcycle, which was a wheeled and combustion-engined single-person hovercraft. Without the anti-grav for hovering. Thace kind of wanted to take it out for a spin someday, but now wasn’t the time. “Kyle.” 

“Look, I know I shouldn’t’ve said that, but I—“ Kyle turned around. “It’s just! In that getup I could almost pretend you were a really tall and buff lady, and that ain’t fair to you but you’re carrying my kid and dammit, that’s… that’s a woman thing. And I just can’t get over that, I guess.” 

Thace came closer, noting how tense Kyle was and wanting to soothe. “I don’t blame you for that. Our species have very different modes of reproduction and sexes. And among humans, I know I should try to be… womanly, for the sake of our cover. I don’t think I’m fierce enough to pull it off, though.” 

That at least got a sliver of a grin out of Kyle. “You’re plenty fierce, Thace. Especially dressed like that. How the hell you’re _owning_ that floral sundress so well and—“ He trailed off abruptly and then coughed. “That’s the other thing. I’m straight. Never had a single doubt even once.” 

Kyle reached out, and pressed his hand against Thace’s rounded pouch, made all the more obvious by the fall of the clothes. “Now, here you are carrying my kid, and being fucking graceful about it, and damn— That’s hot. But you’re a man. Hell, you’re enough to make a guy feel insecure about his masculinity, but you’re _carrying my kid_.” 

“Kyle…” Thace had figured out roughly what ‘straight’ meant to humans in regards to sex, and even if it didn’t make much sense to him as Galra, he could understand why emphasis would be put on it because of the way humans reproduced. It was a lot to work out but he thought he got it. “To you, carrying is intrinsically female, and your instincts respond positively to it. So because I’m currently wearing clothes traditionally worn by human females, and am obviously carrying, you’re experiencing attraction, but also conflict because you know I’m male? So it feels… false, to you?” 

Kyle shook his head and then nodded. “Yes? No? I’m not even _sure_ anymore, is the thing. My girlfriend has a goddamn dick. It’s a hyena dick that’s also her cunt, yeah, and the sex is _fantastic_. And even if it wasn’t I don’t think that’d change my feelings for her, because they’re… intense doesn’t begin to describe it. But somehow that dick went from being weird as hell to hot when I’ve always really been into tits and a nice, round ass before. I even ate her out or sucked her off or whatever the hell and it was great for me too once she stopped freaking out about it. And then there’s you and sometimes I just wanna—“ 

He threw his hands up and turned his face away, and Thace reached out without thinking. Kyle shuddered at the touch of Thace’s gloved fingers, but turned back up to look. He’d been thinking about it since the day he’d nuzzled Kyle when disturbed from his nap, and the answer turned out to be yes. “If you wanted, I wouldn’t be opposed.” 

Kyle swallowed, throat bobbing. “Wait, really?” 

“You’re the sire of my joey, why would I be opposed?” Thace shrugged. “I admit, your lack of the proper pheromones did make for a rough start, but we overcame that and have since bonded quite well.” 

At least, if Kyle had been Galra, they would have bonded, and probably a full partner bond, at that. Kyle’s lack of pheromones interfered with that a bit, but a bond was still there. Thace frowned. “At least, I believe we have? I’ll admit I’m not really sure how humans bond with each other.” 

Kyle laughed. “Yeah, I’d say we’ve bonded. Hell if I know what kind, but yeah.” 

Suddenly he stumbled, and Thace reached out to steady him. Krolia stepped back from where she’d plastered herself against Kyle’s back after giving a nuzzle to his cheek and winked at Thace. “I know what bonding you two can engage in.” 

Kyle’s scent had changed like it had a few times before, in that way that made Thace want to nuzzle and breathe more of it in, but the comment immediately made it go sour. When Kyle leaned back, Thace let go. There wasn’t anything else to do, and he didn’t think a single unfinished talk would help Kyle figure out his feelings and attractions. The headstrong, act and think later, tendency Krolia had been displaying since Thace got to Earth wouldn’t help here.

She had the grace to immediately thread regret into her scent. “Too much?” 

Kyle went and pulled her head down for— Humans called it a kiss, and it made Thace curious, but mouth-to-mouth contact just didn’t mean the same thing for Galra that it did for humans. As far as Thace had discovered so far, it was just a prelude to sex for humans, rather than assessing health, soothing, and offering healing like it was for Galra. How it could feel _remotely_ arousing, Thace didn’t know but Krolia wasn’t complaining. She didn’t smell of arousal either, so maybe she was just humoring him.

Or maybe it was also soothing for humans, because Kyle looked and smelled more settled afterward, straightened his coat, straddled his motorcycle, and waved a hand at Colleen’s truck. “We better get headed if we want to make the movie. This kinda anniversary showing won’t come again for a long time.” 

There was a glint in Krolia’s eyes that suggested she had an _idea_ , but Thace shook his head at her. Now was the time to back off and have some patience. She frowned at him, but didn’t argue as they piled in the vehicle. It was again made for humans, and so cramped, but not as bad as Thace would have expected. Krolia spent the drive stroking over his pouch through the dress, and cooing encouragement whenever the joey kicked or pushed into her fingers. The joey’s scent cues were curiosity and physical contentment so Thace let it continue, even if the joey kicked the wrong way a few times. It was building muscle strength and coordination, which would be necessities when the joey started exiting the pouch for brief periods to explore quite soon now.

When they piled out of the truck, there were many, many younglings mingling around, with presumably parents and sub-adult siblings. It wasn’t even controlled, it was just chaos. Krolia took one look at the crowd, linked arms with him and Colleen and started to strut like a Commander on her own bridge. A path cleared almost instantly, but it also earned them a lot of attention. Thace wanted to shy away from it because attention was exposure and endangered the mission, but he wasn’t going to abandon Krolia, so strut alongside her he did. 

At the end of their path were a human with a graying mane of reddish-orange holding a youngling’s hand, and Kyle, who were talking with another pair of humans and a similarly aged child. Thace knew that the first was Colleen’s husband, Sam, which meant the youngling was Matthew, their child. Their son, Colleen had explained, even if it seemed a bit odd to think of a child so young having a sex already.

Sam smiled at them, the skin around his eyes crinkling with it. “Now _that_ was a classic power walk. Well done, my dear.” 

Colleen disengaged to embrace her husband, and greet her child, while Sam extended his hand. “It’s good to meet you at last! I’ve heard bits and pieces but Colleen has been tight-lipped about the details! Sam Holt, at your service.” 

Krolia had better English and took point on answering, although her pronunciation on cousin faltered. “Leah. I’m Kyle’s girlfriend, and this is my cousin, Thea.” 

Thace still didn’t understand how Leah and Thea were more female-seeming than their own names, or why there existed a difference at all, but apparently humans had complicated sex-based naming rules. It was similar enough that he could remember to answer to it anyway, and he nodded and smiled at the group before extending his own hand to shake Sam’s. 

Kyle put an arm around Krolia’s waist and addressed Sam. “Gonna introduce us to the new neighbors? Transfers to the Garrison, I’m betting.” 

“And you’d be correct!” Sam turned to the couple, “Mako, Takatoshi, this, of course, is Kyle Kogane, one of the best engineers I’ve ever had the honor of working with. Everyone, this is Mako Shirogane, an astrochemist who’s made some fascinating analysis breakthroughs that I’m thrilled to get to work with. And her husband, Takatoshi, who’s involved with research dealing with electromagnetic radiation and pattern determination. He might be onto the first irrevocable proof of extraterrestrial life! And then, their son, Takashi.” 

Thace had to fight not to let his expression reveal anything, but he scented Krolia’s sudden anxiety. It wasn’t likely that they’d caught it, with all the signal noise out there and the encryption on top of it, but she’d sent her message out not that long ago, relatively… 

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Thace answered carefully. There was no way to hide the way the words came out differently when he tried, and he hoped it would be understood as an accent by a non-native speaker. 

The younglings had been deep in a whispered conversation that Thace hadn’t caught, due to keeping the translator off just in case. It would be all too easy for a simple mistake or careless word to reveal that they weren’t native speakers of any human language, and had the technology to make language barriers mostly obsolete. But Thace hadn’t been worried much about the conversation, because younglings were very often concerned with simple things. Then both children turned towards him. 

“I’m Takashi; I’m almost six,” the slightly taller child said, tipping his head, “and, are you aliens?” 

On the other hand, children didn’t have preconceived notions to blind them from seeing through obvious disguises either. The parents all did, and Colleen had reason to keep up the charade, so there was protest from all sides. 

Krolia went a slightly different route and knelt down to be more on their level. “We’re people just like you are.” 

Technically not a lie, but it also didn’t mollify the children. Matt piped up. “But you’re so tall, and your teeth are really big, and…she…? has purple hair! And kitty ears!” 

“I dyed it that way,” Thace said a little quickly, but it came out probably understandable and that was what mattered. He touched his fingertips to one of the baubles, hoping it would be enough to be convincing. “And I don’t have kitty ears.” 

Mako was talking to Takashi in some other language, the boy looking shamefaced, and Thace just wanted to retreat, putting his hand to his pouch when the joey reacted to his stress and squirmed. 

Colleen coughed once to clear her throat. “The movie will be starting very soon; why don’t we go find our seats!” 

The children, at least, were thoroughly distracted by the prospect, but Mako leaned in as they walked inside the building. “I apologize for my son’s rude question. He makes the strangest jumps in logic sometimes. But I couldn’t help but notice, when are you due?” 

Due? Thace fumbled for a moment trying to place the term, and how to answer, and then cast around for Krolia. She was right on top of things. “Months is the word you want, Thea.” 

“Thanks.” Thace did some calculations. “Three months, maybe a little longer.” 

“Excited to meet your baby?” Mako asked. 

Thace just nodded, saved from conversing more by the struggle to fit into the human sized seats packed so closely. By the time they were all situated, the lights were out and the movie was starting, and shortly thereafter Thace just had to turn a disbelieving look on Krolia. E.T., the Extraterrestrial, _really_? 

She leaned in to whisper without disturbing the others. “Better than it sounds, trust me.”


	5. Entangled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this chapter is mostly sex!
> 
> Fun fact:  
> \--It's length, not girth, that matters for Galra dicks, so most of them are very skinny (and double digits long). Females and carriers tend to be thicker, because their canals are fused with their dicks (and _huge_ males like Zarkon can get thick too), but very few Galra dicks end up more than an inch in diameter (1.5 tends to be considered very girthy). For reference, human dicks average at 1.5 inches, and because Keith's dad gets to be the "romantic" lead, he gets to be above average, ~~and because adding a bit of size queen kink is always good~~
> 
> \--also "rava" is Galran for essentially mama (and specifically refers to the pouch mother, brood mother uses a different word)

The next week, Thace made the discovery that the joey’s first fur coat was starting to grow in. It was just patchy and too thin to cover the skin just yet, but he could already tell it would be the glossy, prismatic black and burgundy of Krolia’s mane, and not the dull black that humans tended to have. Thace suspected it was because human eyes just didn’t pick up on color frequencies and light angles the way Galra eyes did. He savored the new knowledge on his dawn run, and while working himself through sword forms and exercises until he was pleasantly tired and the joey was giving off excited scent cues and squirming and stretching in the pouch. It even got a little hand past the pouch rim, and squeezed his finger when he put a hand down to give support. 

Thace laughed as he trotted back to Kyle’s house. “Enjoying exercising with your rava, huh? Such a strong joey you’re growing into.” 

The scent hit him outside the door, and Thace considered waiting, but after all that movement, the joey certainly needed a grooming. He hoped Krolia wouldn’t be too frustrated when Kyle shied off from the sex they were having inside. Now that he knew that humans were mostly monogamous in addition to being intensely private about it, Kyle’s shyness about having sex with Thace present made more sense. Krolia didn’t appreciate getting worked up and then having to come down without satisfaction though, which was equally understandable. 

They were tangled on the mattress, Kyle between her legs and thoroughly flushed as he rocked his whole body against her. She was nuzzling at his ears and neck, as well as presenting her neck for Kyle to bite (and kiss, which was far more kinky), muttering encouragements in between soft chirps and trills of pleasure. 

The scent and the sight made his cock stir in the sheath, but it was easy enough to ignore while he went to the sanitizer and started the grooming. The joey was big enough now that it took two cloths, and it was a bit of additional stretch to get his hands down there, but also big enough to move into the motions helpfully, so it didn’t take much longer than it had in the beginning. Thace hummed encouragement during the task, and was about to leave them to their entanglements when Krolia’s scent suddenly changed. 

She’d noticed, and her scent cried out for him to come and join them, all but demanding it. The delicious way Kyle’s scent entwined with hers (and Thace suddenly was able to place the little bursts of scent from the human that had eluded him so far) had him taking two steps closer before Thace remembered how conflicted Kyle had been on the day of the trip to the movies. He didn’t want to ruin what they had built, even if sex was so very tempting right now. 

“Kyle—“ Krolia gasped and chirped, arching and pulling Kyle closer with her fingers leaving indents in the flesh right below Kyle’s ass. “It’s okay to want it, want him. He’s _ours_ , pouch-mother to our joey; we should take care of his needs too—ohhh _fuck_.” 

Kyle’s scent thickened beyond what Thace had ever smelt from the human before but that wasn’t the sole reason she’d resorted to swearing from the pleasure. Thace could see between them this close, and her external canal was stretched _tight_ around Kyle’s cock. Much shorter than even the smallest Galra’s, certainly, but so thick— Even the largest of Galra would have been hard pressed to match that girth even at the very base of their cocks, much less over most of the length. His own cock struggled past his conscious control to unsheathe and shivered slick and eager between his thighs. He _wanted_ , but at the same time, the thought of distressing Kyle was almost physically painful. 

“Tell him,” Krolia trilled, “tell him how we could give him such a good fucki—ah!” 

She was struck wordless for a moment, just trilling pleasure while Kyle grunted and moaned, but then picked it up again. “You fill up his canal so _full_ and I take care of his cock, and— Please, Kyle!” 

“Want it.” Kyle muttered against her throat, “want it, fuck. Stuff his cunt with my dick, get those pretty noises—“ 

Krolia trilled again, squeezing at Kyle's ass. "Yes, he'll trill so sweetly for you. Your cock will stretch him to his limit and no one else will ever be able to satisfy him like you do."

"Fuck. I wish he was here—“ Kyle almost snarled the words, rolling his hips against Krolia's thighs desperately.

Krolia stretched out her hand towards Thace and he was already stumbling forward in answer, dropping his pants in a tangle. Thace was so aroused that needy chirps escaped his chest and only the knowledge that too much weight would smother the joy kept him from plastering himself against both of them. He ended up on his knees instead, all but trembling in lust. "Kyle, Krolia, I —“

Kyle jerked in surprise but his eyes were nearly swallowed up by pupil, and his scent thickened even further. What he might have said was cut off by Krolia kissing him (her scent went flat, but Kyle’s heightened) and Thace leaned in for the nuzzling he'd been wanting for some time now. Kyle's skin was warm and drenched in that tempting scent. Not bare either, although the hairs were sparse except for his mane and beard. The hairs tugged against his own fur with nearly electric pleasure and Thace trilled to express his joy and desperate, _desperate_ need. 

Krolia broke the kiss, crooning as her scent picked the arousal back up. "Look at how he trills for you already. Let me—“

Then she flipped herself and Kyle so she was astride his lap while he kneeled and they both sounded pleasure. Her hand found one of Kyle's and guided it towards Thace's legs. He spread his knees, alight with anticipation, and chirped when their wrists brushed his cock but Krolia's goal was farther back. He didn't lubricate as freely as a female but it was still enough to feel slick and welcoming when Kyle's clawless fingers were shown the entrance to his canal (it was hard not to jump anyway, instincts expecting claws and pain). Thace gasped as pressure circled and pushed and--

His trill was louder than he'd ever heard from himself as his back arched entirely without his intention. The muscles in his canal shivered and rippled to welcome the fingers deeper while Krolia pulled her hand back to grip his cock. 

"Goddamn he's so wet for me. Krolia, I—“ Kyle sounded winded and a sudden shake passed through him. The fingers stretching Thace open stilled for what felt like forever but was probably only a couple ticks then surged deeper. 

Thace trilled again as Krolia gripped him tighter and added her own voice to it. The change in her scent told Thace that her pleasure had peaked and it was enough to usher in his own. It wasn’t as intense as one from full penetration, but it was more than enough. The pleasure settled into a thrum that left his bones feeling like water, and as they all went limp with almost drowsy contentment, Thace let himself topple in a slow controlled slump to the side and curled up against them. Krolia’s chest ended up under his head, and Kyle sprawled on them both. 

For a glorious few moments, there was nothing but scent and warmth and the rush of breath over skin. Then Kyle tensed, and propped himself up on his elbow. He stared at his fingers with a furrowed brow, spreading them apart and watching the lubrication stretch between them in sagging strings. “Goddamn. Damn me…” 

He sat up completely and rubbed his dry hand over his face. That wasn’t a good sign. Thace’d definitely misstepped. “Kyle, I… I should apologize for not thinking before acting.” 

Kyle grunted something wordless and then sighed. “Ain’t your fault. I sure as hell wanted it in the heat of the moment.” 

Krolia reached down and pulled something out of her canal by a silicone cord. It looked like little balls strung together, and Thace abruptly realized it’d help her get the pleasure of full penetration even though Kyle was nowhere near long enough to reach her cervix. His canal clenched at the thought, and Krolia smirked and winked at him before turning her attention back to Kyle with a frustrated huff. 

“Then what’s the problem? If we understand, maybe we can help you. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” 

“I… Yeah. Yeah, I did. But—“ Kyle let his head fall back to knock against the wall. “How the hell does it even work? I don’t wanna be unfair, but I keep focusing on— on things like your cunt and the fact you’re carrying my baby and those’re tied to being a woman. And I know they don’t make a woman, having ‘em or not, and that having ‘em doesn’t make a guy less of a guy. But knowing something ain’t enough if you can’t put it into practice. So, do I have these moments of wanting to fuck you because you’re _you_ , or because you’ve got these woman-associated things and you’re here and available? ‘cause the second sure ain’t any kind of respectful.” 

“Why is this even a discussion?” Krolia muttered, radiating frustration. “Those things that you’re calling female are completely normal and expected for a male. Or are you saying that you can’t be truly attracted to me because I have a cock, which human women don’t have?” 

“Hell no! I fell hard for you before I even knew what was in your pants. I love you, Krolia.” Kyle looked so lost, but so earnest. “I can’t lie and say that your dick _wasn’t_ a speedbump at first, but I guess I was just able to accept it as a part of you? Or something; I ain’t sure. Whatever happened, it doesn’t make me think of you as less of a woman, and it’s not that I love you in spite of it. At this point, I’m pretty sure it’s a because? Or at least a part of the whole picture.” 

Thace still couldn’t claim he fully understood, and he didn’t have any ideas on what would help Kyle resolve the conflict either. But he also knew he shouldn’t complicate things, no matter his desires. This was already complicated. 

“Do you know of anything that would help you determine how you feel about me? Which option is the true one?” Thace hadn’t been expecting a positive answer so when Kyle shook his head, Thace moved on. “Then until you do figure it out, Krolia and I will try not to do anything intentionally that will force the issue.” 

Kyle’s smile was a little thin, but sincere. “Thanks. I know dealing with my hangups can’t be easy, but I appreciate it. And I… Look, I know I was jealous at first, but I understand better now how this all…” he waved his hand vaguely, “works for you, and I’ve gotten a pretty strong impression that the, uh, moms have sex too. So, if you, want, I’m willing to try. I ain’t gonna say it’ll go over well, but…” 

He shrugged, and Krolia pulled him in for a kiss. “Not always, but usually, yes. So thank you, and if it does bother you, we’ll stop.” 

Thace nodded in agreement. “We care for you, so we won’t do anything to distress you if we can avoid it.” 

Something changed in Kyle’s expression, and he looked like he might be about to cry, but his scent and tone were pure happiness. “I’m a goddamn lucky guy. Thanks.”


	6. Unwelcome News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going to postpone posting anything for a month or so, because I'm working overtime for the next few weeks, and it'll give me time to make sure everything is edited nicely before I add chapters! But rest assured, I'm not abandoning this fic.
> 
> This chapter is theoretically the halfway point (but that could always change if I need to add more scenes in).

They didn’t have sex in spite of several attempts. The joey had decided to revel in its newly discovered ability to move around more than just a few little kicks in the pouch, which Thace knew was practice, and building muscle for eventual forays into the world outside, but also was cutting his sleep into discreet moments, stolen in between the joey’s stretching and squirming. So instead of nuzzling leading to sex, it usually led to cuddled sleep, but all the same, Thace woke up feeling refreshed every time, and with a release of tension he hadn’t been aware he’d had. He was pretty sure the changes in his scent when he nuzzled Krolia were helping the joey find sleep.

The joey’s first fur kept growing in as the days and weeks and then more than a month passed and Krolia was thrilled. Kyle was absolutely bemused at the idea of fur at all, and after some questions they figured out that he was mostly worried about the joey’s ability to fit in with other human children. Kyle was dubious about the idea of the joey quite possibly ending up a furless Galra, after glimpsing such a thick and fluffy coat on it, but agreed to wait and see. 

Then Thace discovered an encoded message on his daily check of his shuttle. He’d known that Krolia had been able to leave for some time, but that simulating such a bad crash gave her significant leeway when she chose to leave. He’d wanted to give her until the joey exited the pouch for the first time, at least, but… 

He carefully unencrypted and downloaded the message onto a portable device and brought it back to the house. Kyle was just waking up to go to work, and mumbling sleepily at Krolia’s chatter over his first cup of coffee. Krolia went absolutely silent when Thace entered the room. 

She stared at the device for a long moment, fingers clenched around her own cup until it cracked. “So it’s time. I knew it was coming but I—“ 

Thace sat down heavily next to her. “I’d hoped we would have until the joey could leave the pouch. So you could hold it at least once before—“ 

“What’s going on?” Kyle demanded, but it sounded more like a protest than a question. 

“You’ve known from the beginning that my time here was limited, but I never told you why.” Krolia pushed the cup away, and started mopping up the coffee that was seeping through the crack. 

“I knew better than to ask. Enough to know that you’d crashed and had to repair your ship before you could leave.” Kyle wouldn’t look at either of them. “But I’ve seen your pod, the crash damage wasn’t… really damage, was it?” 

That got a little laugh from Krolia, but it was humorless. “Never let a good engineer near damage; they’ll know too well how to tell what’s real and what’s sabotage. But I think it’s time you knew. You deserve to know everything. And I need to show you two something before I go, anyway. Kyle, think your bike will hold three?”

Thace stiffened when Krolia said everything, but at the same time, he couldn’t disagree. Kyle would be able to put some facts together just from what he already knew, and having his trust would make leaving easier for both of them when the time came. Maybe it would even help the planet hold out longer when the Empire finally decided to turn its full attention on Earth. 

Kyle shook his head. “My bike won’t, but I’ve been working on something. Seeing your ship gave me ideas on how to turn it from theory to reality.” 

It was a bit of a hike from his little house, camouflaged between two outcroppings. Thace had been curious, but had left it when he’d noticed Kyle’s scent on the area, and now he was being shown. It turned out to be a proper hoverbike, in mechanical order but not fully finished, more advanced than the rest of what humans had available, but not as far as most Galra tech. A true accomplishment. Kyle grinned at their impressed looks. “Needs a paint job; I was thinking red. What do you think?” 

Krolia laughed. “Red suits you.” 

She hopped on and took the controls without asking, and Thace just shook his head at Kyle’s not-quite-seriously offended look. “It’s my bike!” 

Once they were all onboard, she fired it up and sent them out into the desert, heading towards a ridge-line. The closer they got, the more fur down Thace’s spine stood up and prickled. He felt almost _drawn_ , and was nearly vibrating when she lead them into a little cave. There were carvings on the walls of some kind of feline—

It clicked. “One of the Lions is here; that was what the scouting mission was searching for.” Thace paused. “I can _feel_ it.” 

Kyle glanced back and forth between them, mystified. Krolia just nodded. “I can too, and if equipment is calibrated right, you can pick up faint readings from as far out as the astroid belt between the fourth and fifth planets. Locating the source from that far out is difficult, but if they can track it even as far as this planet—“

Thace hissed in a breath around the words, “they’ll move to conquer the entire planet just to set up a base of operations to search from.” 

Krolia scowled. “That’s if one of the Commanders or Generals doesn’t just conquer in order to have a conquered planet under their name, but knowing the Lion is here will make them move immediately, instead of spending time weighing the glory against the logistics of maintaining control over somewhere so far from the center of the Empire. Thankfully, if we can keep the location of the Lion hidden, Earth’s available resources are mundane, and generally not worth the expense.” 

“I don’t like what I’m hearing,” Kyle said very, very quietly. 

“You shouldn’t,” Krolia answered back sharply. “Your planet’s time as a free world is limited at best.” 

Kyle ran his hands over his face and through his hair (the English word for a mane was apparently reserved for certain animals). “You said I deserved to know everything; maybe you should start at the beginning.” 

Thace looked at Krolia and she nodded, better to get the worst shock with over first. “There’s too much history to go over everything, but we can give you an overview. The most important thing to know is that the biggest threat in the known universe is the Galra Empire. For the last ten thousand years, under Emperor Zarkon, the Empire has been in a ruthlessly expansionistic period. Zarkon started by wiping out every last Altean and their home system, and since then the Empire has been crawling through the galaxies and conquering or destroying system after system with military might. Krolia and I are both on the lower end of middle ranked within the Empire’s fleet.” 

Kyle went pale, and then stepped back, eyes wide. But he didn’t run, so there was that. “I ain’t dumb; I know there’s more to it than just that. But I’m too cynical to think that I somehow redeemed you with my love or some bullshit like that.” 

“You’re good, but not that good, sweetie.” Krolia smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “There have been rebellions; there will probably always be. Most don’t last long before they’re crushed, or are forced to go into hiding and focus on achieving small victories instead of widespread freedom. One of those rebellions is made of Galra who disagree with the Empire and seek freedom for all from Zarkon’s tyranny, and it’s the latter type.” 

Krolia pulled out her blade, and Thace did the same. When Kyle reached out, Thace let the man inspect the blade and the glowing hilt. “We won’t tell you many details, because telling you this much breaks our code of secrecy, but we think you’d have figured out that we’re a part of that group on your own even without direct confirmation. If you see someone with a blade and that sigil, you’ll know that they will be an ally to the humans’ resistance to the Empire.”

“You’re both acting like your Empire’s gonna take over regardless,” Kyle muttered as he handed the blade back to Thace. “So I take it you’re both working to disrupt things from the inside?” 

Krolia nodded once, but didn’t elaborate. The less Kyle knew about their exact missions, the safer they would all be. “There once was a super weapon, called Voltron, made up of five robotic Lions, and piloted by five of the best warriors in the universe. Legend says its construction was headed by the Altean King, who was also one of the pilots, and when Zarkon attacked them, the Alteans chose to hide the Lions. Zarkon has been searching for Voltron ever since, and has found and retrieved the Red Lion. Another’s location has been narrowed down to a particular system using data from the Red Lion and our agents are doing their best to delay pinpointing that location exactly. One of the remaining three is right under our feet. If Zarkon is able to obtain Voltron, not even all the combined might of the rest of the universe could ever stop him, but if a group opposed to him does…” 

“The universe might stand a chance against the Empire?” Kyle hazarded. “Those ain’t the best odds. So are you here to dig this … lion up and take it back?” 

Thace shook his head, but Krolia was the one who elaborated. “The Lions are powerful individually, but only together can form Voltron. Until all five can be gathered in one place quickly, retrieving them only puts them at more risk of falling into Zarkon’s hands, but we are doing everything we can to keep them hidden and safe until the time is right, and they can be stolen right out from under him and delivered to someone who can use them.” 

“Not you guys?” 

They both snorted, and Thace didn’t see any issue in explaining that further, “If necessary, but the legends also say the Lions are sentient enough to choose their pilots. After Zarkon’s betrayal of the universe, I doubt any Galra would be a first choice. I’d send them to the Olkari, if the decision was mine. Their rebellious spirit is strong, and they held out the longest of any species I’ve ever seen when the Empire put its might into conquering them.”

“But they still fell,” Kyle said almost absently, expression dark. “So there was a scouting mission looking for this Lion, and you were a part of it, and sabotaged it to crash, yeah?” 

“I eliminated the rest of the crew and made it look like a crash, yes.” Her voice was cold and businesslike, which made Kyle glance at her with a concerned expression. 

“And you gotta go back, to keep fighting?” 

“That’s a large part of it; we’re few, and need every agent possible.” Something churned inside Thace. The thought of leaving hadn’t been a pleasant one almost from before he’d even arrived on planet, but it was so much worse now. 

Krolia leaned over to embrace Kyle. “And if I don’t return with the falsified results, another scouting mission will simply be sent. It wasn’t easy to get me added to the first one.”

Kyle shoved her off and started pacing. “So you’re leaving to keep Earth beneath their notice a little longer, to protect it. What happens to my kid? To… us? I was trying not to think about it, but you’re right that I knew it was always coming. Just… not this soon. You’re both leaving now, aren’t you?” 

“I hadn’t played it yet,” Thace admitted. He’d been worried about that very thing, although it was more likely just Kolivan recalling Krolia. Krolia scowled and flipped the device open to start the message.

Kolivan’s face appeared on the holo-screen. “Krolia, I gave you as long as I could, but the mission has been declared a loss. You need to return immediately.” 

There was a longer than usual pause. “But I spared one of our agents to place encrypted hyperspeed relays. Messages will still take at least a quintant to reach their destination, but it will facilitate communication for as long as they last. Thace, you were right that Sendak would publicly repudiate you and Prorok would take an interest, and the sooner you can begin infiltrating his officers, the better. You should know by now how well the joeys will be able to blend in with their sire’s species. Don’t delay without reason, and I expect regular reports even if you remain.” 

Thace turned to Kyle. “I’m not leaving until the joey is pouch-weaned unless it’s an emergency.” 

Kolivan’s holo continued on. “And since you just assured Krolia that you wouldn’t leave until the joeys were pouch-weaned properly, I want you to send an introduction of yourself to Prorok to start courting his favor. I’ll get the message forwarded to the correct relays so it can appear to come from Edjiza. He—“ Kolivan allowed a grimace, “was interested enough to have a message to you forwarded. I’ve attached it to the end of this communication—“

Krolia shut it off abruptly. “I don’t think we need to watch him salivating over the chance to have a proven pouch-mother under his thumb right now.” 

Thace already felt like his fur had gotten drenched in filthy water. “Agreed.” 

“I get that I don’t know the details, but just from that, I’m gonna say that that guy sounds like walking sexual harassment, and that you should stay the fuck away.” Kyle was dead serious, and Thace wasn’t sure why, but he felt a little warmth settle in his chest.

“It will be my mission when I return; I’ll endure.” And now he’d have some good memories to focus on when things got bad, as they surely would, Thace thought, but knew better than to say. 

Kyle raised a finger, eyes flashing and looking like he was going to protest, but then stopped, rubbed his hand down his face and gave a strangled mixture of a groan and a sigh. “Long live the resistance. Of course you’d be like that. But what do we do now?” 

“Say goodbye,” said Krolia heavily.


	7. Baby Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter at last! Also, tiny Shiro and Matt were just supposed to appear in the one chapter, but they were so adorable that I had to include more of them.

They went back, and Thace left them to have some time together while he went to listen to Prorok’s message and compose his own. He felt on display while doing it and had to fight not to curl around his pouch protectively. Letting the commander see him, pouch round and heavy with carrying, was part of the appeal, but there was no way Thace was going back before the joey was fully pouch-weaned, even if it would improve his position and favor with Prorok. He’d put his blade through Prorok’s throat before he’d let the other Galra near his joey. 

Thace went back, intending to scrub himself clean of the lingering disgust that clung to him like a physical thing, but Krolia didn’t give him a chance. He was pulled down onto the mattress with her and Kyle, and she groomed them both with a subtle air of desperation to it. They stayed like that until the sun began to sink below the horizon, just holding onto each other silently in between flurries of grooming. 

It was Colleen who broke the tableau, knocking cheerfully on the door. Her cheer dropped when she saw their expressions, and instead of what probably would have been more of a demand, she asked cautiously, “We were gonna have dinner together with the Shiroganes and wondered if you wanted to come?” 

Thace didn’t really feel up to sharing their last moments together with other people, but at the same time, strange behavior would attract suspicion, and this was a normal thing for humans to do with each other. Krolia didn’t even look at her, and Kyle grimaced. “We’re… not really in the mood for a dinner party, Col.” 

“It’s not the joey, or anything?” Colleen stepped back. “I have things in my truck, if—“ 

“The joey is just fine.” Thace let his ears press against his head, not caring if anyone saw his distress. “But we just received word from home; Krolia has to leave very soon.” 

“Oh shit. I’m sorry.” Colleen leaned against the door frame and straightened her dress in an obvious nervous gesture. “So here’s where I have to admit that tonight was supposed to be a surprise for you guys. It was Mako’s idea! And I didn’t think it was a bad one, just… damn, somehow I’d pushed it right out of my head that you’d probably have to go back to space someday.” 

Kyle barked a laugh that had no humor in it. “Don’t tell me you guys planned a baby shower.” 

One side of Colleen’s mouth twitched up. “Then I won’t _tell_ you that we planned a baby shower.” 

The translator’s ideas for what a baby shower could be were obviously not accurate, so it must be some kind of metaphor. Knowing that didn’t help Thace get any closer to figuring out what one _was_. “What’s a baby shower?” 

“It’s a traditional party for new parents, the moms mostly, but last thirty years or so, dads get involved more in ‘em. There’s food, sometimes games and stuff, and friends of the family bring gifts for the new baby. Baby clothes, diapers, bottles, maybe a crib or things like that. It’s a real nice gesture. I just don’t think—” Kyle explained that heavily, not looking at Colleen.

Krolia stood up. “We’re going.” When they all turned to look at her, she gave them a smile that looked almost threatening. “I’ll spend my lat night on Earth doing an Earth tradition and celebrating our joey. Better than spending our night here moping about my departure.” 

Thace wanted to protest that they hadn’t been moping, exactly, but he agreed that the party as described would be an important thing to go to, so he nodded, and started putting on his disguise. Even several uses later he was still surprised that humans fell for it so easily. When he and Krolia were both dressed and disguised, Colleen looked them up and down and shook her head. “Thace, if you had a smaller frame, you’d look about to _pop_. He’s getting so big.” 

Krolia elbowed Thace in his off side, which gave too easily as an unpleasant reminder of the empty teats that shouldn’t be, and commented airily. “Just think how round he’d look with three or four like is the usual. Or six!” 

But her expression shuttered abruptly. “I’m never going to get to visit the grave again.” 

Colleen had been laughing along, but stopped so fast the last chuckle froze in her throat and made her cough. “Grave?” 

Krolia didn’t say anything, but Thace thought someone else should know the grief they still felt. He hadn’t been hit as hard by it, only feeling the grief in quick, painful bursts when something reminded him his pouch should be fuller than it was, but he knew that Krolia went out to the spot once a day, and Kyle’s scent was thick there too. “One of the joeys died during labor, and there was an egg with a joey too close to what I understand is the human norm to have had any hope of surviving.” 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry—“ Colleen put a hand over her mouth, eyes suddenly wet. “So that’s why you all were so desperate. You’d already lost two…” 

“And we’re going to celebrate our surviving joey tonight. I can’t think of a better way to say goodbye to it.” Krolia’s voice was too carefully modulated to actually be as firm and cheerful as she sounded, but Thace wasn’t going to bring it up. 

Thace got into the truck with Colleen, but tipped his head at Kyle on his bike when Krolia tried to join him. She gave him a sad look, but nodded understanding. The trip was quiet at first, but then Colleen cleared her throat. “When are you going to have to leave?” 

“I don’t know,” Thace answered honestly, “because if I’m needed badly enough to be called, I have to go. But I trust that it would only happen in the most dire situation, and I’ll be able to stay until the joey is fully pouch-weaned.” 

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, pretty clothes and jewelry looking almost out of place against the well used and rugged truck. Colleen had explained once that she spent most of her time up to her elbows or worse in shit and blood, and pus, and liked to look and feel as elegant as possible off of work, and Thace still wasn’t sure of human standards of beauty, but he thought he understood the urge. Hadn’t he found himself pulled towards the softest, least armor-like clothes he could find during his stay here? Shedding the image of the soldier for something… else. What else, he didn’t know. 

But finally Colleen pulled him from his thoughts by speaking again. “When you leave, what happens to the joey and Kyle?” 

Being honest here was probably for the best, so Thace took a breath to brace himself. “The original plan had always been to leave the joey here with Kyle. Krolia didn’t want to deny him his joey, and I agree. But if the joey can’t pass as human, that might not be possible, and in that case… Kyle would have a choice to make.” 

Thace wasn’t going to make it for Kyle; the man deserved that much, and if he was willing to get himself drawn into an intergalactic war for his joey, that was a sacrifice Thace respected. 

Colleen’s breath was hissed through clenched teeth. “But what about _you_?” 

“I will miss my joey with everything I have, every tick for the rest of my life. I know Krolia feels the same.” Thace closed his eyes, resting his hand over the weight of the joey against him. “But this is a sacrifice we need to make for our joey’s and Kyle’s safety and happiness.” 

“If you think they’ll be happy being left behind—“ 

“There’s a _war_ out there, Colleen. If we stay, that war will follow us here, one way or another. It won’t just be our joey or Kyle that would be harmed. You, your husband, all of Earth—“ Thace was probably telling her too much, but he desperately wanted her to understand. “And even without that, hybrids are treated poorly at best. I wouldn’t wish that treatment on my worst enemy, much less my own joey.” 

“Rock and a hard place,” Colleen said, voice heavy with defeat. 

“Yes. But I—“ Thace swallowed, “I don’t regret it. This experience has been a wonderful gift, and for all the pain I’ll feel because of it in the future, these few happy moments have been worth it.” 

“You’re a good man, Thace,” Colleen said as she pulled into her driveway, “I’m glad I got to meet both you and Krolia. Now let’s go throw you a party. Pretend to be surprised.” 

Kyle’s bike purred up beside the truck as Thace got out and smoothed down his dress. This one was a layer of a dark, knit fabric over a cream colored under-layer. It stretched a little tight through his shoulders and over his pouch, but otherwise covered what it needed to, and Krolia had picked out her shirt and jeans to match. She looped arms with him and Kyle and—

Pretending to be surprised turned out not to be necessary, because he’d been expecting a party, but not everyone popping out of hiding and yelling. Thace and Krolia both went for their blades, only for Thace not even to have his, and Thace regretted it immediately when he saw the children holding up small handmade signs. The glint of light off Krolia’s drawn blade silenced the happy shouts abruptly, and she sheathed it quickly. 

“Startling a soldier is a bad idea.” She didn’t look at anyone when she said it. They both knew that if they’d been more relaxed, the blade wouldn’t have been drawn. 

Sam came forward and put supportive hands on little Matt’s shoulders, helping the child recover from the shock of having a weapon drawn on him. His voice was honestly contrite. “I didn’t even consider such a thing; my apologies.” 

Thace cleared his throat. “What’s happening?” 

It was an obvious change of subject, and everyone went with it. There was food, although too much of it was filled with the sugars that humans so loved. Most of them were a mild inconvenience to an adult Galra who could expel them at a rate that matched or exceeded toxicity buildup, but some of the monosaccharides in particular would build up to toxic levels in a joey even after consuming small amounts, so Thace stuck to the offerings he was sure were safe. It resulted in an awkward conversation where Thace had to try to explain avoiding sugars without the humans suspecting anything. He was pretty sure he’d failed, but was also past the point of caring.

Krolia diverted the topic to something else by asking about the wrapped things in the corner. It turned out to be presents. There were clothes and small toys, and blankets, which Thace appreciated, even if he suspected the joey would outgrow them before even leaving the pouch. Then there were other things that would have been useful for a human child but pointless for a joey. And then the children came forward, proudly bearing gifts that they’d picked out personally.

Matt’s turned out to be a children’s book about Earth’s solar-system, and accurate, if told in a fanciful style. The gift was touching, and Matt was delighted when Thace told him that he’d read the book to the joey regularly. 

Takashi’s was bulkier, and when Thace opened it up, there were brightly colored figures inside. Thace recognized them as a particular kind of toy, made of sturdy plastics, but he didn’t know what the figures were supposed to depict. 

“They’re the Starangers!” Takashi announced proudly, and then leaned in conspiratorially. “They’ll protect the baby from the dark, and are really good for playing pretend.” 

Then the little boy drew a deep breath and started off like a shot about them. The Starangers, as it turned out, were a children’s television show, part of a very long tradition of similar stories that continued every year. Thace wasn’t sure about dressing up in brightly colored spandex being good for fighting, but the part about combining robots in order to fight the the evil alien empire intrigued him. Takashi happily chattered on about how he’d picked out the red one, who was the leader, the pilot of the Starangers’ spaceship, and sculpted to resemble a human female in form, for if the baby was a girl, and the black one, which was male and apparently knew all the cool science stuff, for if the baby was a boy. But then, Takashi had declared, he had to include the green, blue, yellow and purple ones because it wasn’t fair to give the baby only two options, because what if his or her favorite color wasn’t red or black?

The purple one was placed in Thace’s hands with great ceremony, Takashi beaming up at him. “Star Violet is my favorite! He’s the very best fighter of them all, and his constellation is Leo, the Lion. And he became a Staranger because he wanted to explore! But also because he wanted to protect people. And I wanna grow up to be just like him. I’m gonna go to space and explore and I’m gonna protect all the people.” Takashi took a breath at last. “But Star Violet will protect you and the baby until I get bigger.” 

Thace felt his heart swell with protectiveness that almost rivaled what he felt for his joey. Takashi was such a good child, brave and pure and innocent. Takashi and all the humans like him, so eager to explore, so interested in just the science and adventure of it, were a reason to protect this tiny planet. Suddenly, Thace had no doubts about leaving the joey here, and all the more determination to keep this planet safe from Zarkon and the Empire, no matter what. 

“Thank you,” Thace coughed to clear the constriction of his throat, “this gift means more than you can know.” 

Matt frowned, “Even more than the book?”

Ah, well… “It’s more what all your gifts combined mean to us, but Takashi’s declaration was very moving.”

The children looked a little confused, and the adults looked touched, but only Colleen and Kyle had any idea what the real reason for the statement was. Krolia decided to elaborate a little, getting down on one knee to address the children eye to eye. 

“The universe out there can be a very dangerous place, full of pains and horrors, but you just reminded us of the good parts, and gave us hope that bringing our child into this world is a good thing.” 

There was a long moment of silence where nobody dared speak, but there was only so long it could last. Mako broke it by clearing her throat. “I know Colleen said you didn’t know the sex yet, but have you thought of any names?” 

Thace looked at Krolia and Kyle and they all three swore simultaneously. Colleen covered Matt’s ears but her smile was fond, and the Shiroganes both failed to contain their laughter. 

“I guess I know what we’re doing tonight!” Krolia announced brightly.


	8. Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the threesome sex we've all been waiting for!
> 
> Fun facts:  
> \--Threesomes are actually fairly common for Galra, usually between partners and a temporary lover. It's considered normal for parents to form a triad for the duration of a joey's time in the pouch (and often starts in the latter stages of brooding the eggs). Galra who _want_ children are more likely to engage in threesomes.  
>  \--On the flip side, disagreeing over _who_ to make a third in the relationship is the most common reason for partnerships to end. And they tend to end violently when they do.

They’d made their excuses shortly after, and found their way to the mattress on the floor, huddled around Kyle’s bulky personal computing terminal. He had human baby names resources pulled up on the screen, but so many of them were…weird and felt or sounded foreign in their mouths. Or when he or Krolia suggested liking them Kyle would ask if they were sure they were having a girl, or sure they were having a boy with a note of challenge in his voice because he _knew_ that there was no way to be sure for a very long time. 

Finally Kyle threw up his hands. “I can’t believe you guys don’t _know_. It makes this so much harder than it ought to be.” 

Krolia sighed. “It’s not our fault you humans force one or the other gender on your children from birth just because of their apparent genitals. What happens if you decide your child is a girl, or a boy, and they end up the other? Or neither? Or _both_?” 

“That’s—“ Kyle pushed his face into his hands and groaned loudly, “—that’s complicated. It’s so complicated and I don’t even know where I’d begin explaining the concept of transgender to aliens. It’s not like I _am_ , so I’m not even qualified and I’d probably get it wrong.” 

Tensions were high and Thace winced as the joey’s scent cues went distressed. “We’re upsetting our joey; maybe we should take a step back.”

Krolia huffed unhappily, but nodded, and then gently pulled out the edge of Thace’s pouch out. The brush of her ear and cheek against his pouch fur was electric, teasing at contact he’d wanted but hadn’t really had. Wasn’t going to have. But she just kissed the joey on the top if its tiny head and warbled soothingly. The joey, physically and scent-wise, calmed and Thace drew clawtips through her mane in thanks and in desire to groom. She’d be leaving during the dawn, when any light from her pod might get lost in the sky, but there wasn’t enough light for human eyes to see the lift-off clearly. They probably wouldn’t get this chance again for a very long time, if ever, and Thace found himself missing it horribly already. He didn’t mean to, but a soft, mournful keen tore out of his chest. Krolia answered it, hands tightening on his waist and arm hard enough that her claws probably poked through fur and drew blood. She lifted her head, disturbing the fur on his chest because he’d long given up on tops when in private, and pushed her cheek hard against the hollow of his throat. Thace gasped. 

Kyle made a broken, forlorn sound. “I guess I should… give you guys some privacy.” 

“No, sweetie,” Krolia’s voice was soft, almost frantic, “please, stay? I want to be with both of my boys tonight. Smell all three of us and carry that back with me.” 

She grabbed Kyle’s hand in one of hers and then Thace’s, and Thace watched mesmerized as she pressed their hands palm to palm and threaded their fingers together. Her hands cupped both of theirs, and she rubbed her cheeks against their knuckles. It was enough to unsheathe Thace’s cock almost violently, and he chirped for her, for Kyle. 

“Goddamn,” Kyle breathed the word out, rather than voicing it, and then swallowed hard. And then swallowed again. “Fuck it. For tonight, yeah. I’ll worry about my hangups later. I want it. Both of you and your damn pretty noises you make.” 

He leaned forward and kissed her, and Krolia sighed heavily, scent going cool. Thace didn’t blame her; even thinking of kissing and sex made keeping his arousal a struggle. But she put her hand to his hair, pulled him to the side, and then nipped hard at his neck. Kyle made a noise in his throat that went right to Thace’s cock, and arched his neck into the point of contact. There was nothing left behind but a faint red mark, skin not even scratched, and she nuzzled over it with a happy sigh. “I’m sorry about the kissing, sweetie. I can never quite do it at the beginning; it’s too weird.” 

Kyle laughed. “I’m sorry too. It’s just so… why’d I fall in love with aliens that don’t even kiss?” 

But he returned the gesture, nuzzling against her throat and dragging his free hand down her side to ruck her shirt up. She chirped, arched her back, and then ripped her shirt off one handed. It tore, but she’d be back in her armor in the morning so it didn’t really matter. 

Thace took the opportunity to pull off his pants and nuzzled the crest of fur along her back, fading from the magenta at the base of her skull to the darker purple of her markings. Krolia chirped, and together he and Kyle pulled off her pants too. 

Then Krolia laughed. “Somebody’s overdressed!” 

Kyle glared up at them from where he was nuzzling Krolia’s bright magenta markings, splashed across her chest, and muttered about being busy, but he pulled away long enough to shrug out of his top and pants. Then he rubbed his cheek down her stomach and over her thighs, getting a trill. But Krolia twisted to nip at Thace’s ear-tip. 

When he jerked in surprise, she gestured vaguely at the bedside stand, next to the empty bed frame. “Go get the beads from the drawer. I’ve got an idea.” 

Kyle hummed from where he was making himself busy between her legs, and Krolia arched for him. Thace scrambled for the drawers, cradling the joey as he went. They’d have to be careful about position for the joey’s sake, but Krolia would be well aware and was probably planning for it. When Thace got back to them, Krolia had fallen back, and she trilled loudly. Kyle had his mouth on her cock and external canal, and Thace must have made a face at it. Krolia winked at him. “If you don’t think about what it is, it feels amazing.” 

He’d have to take her word for it, Thace decided, but she pushed Kyle away and gave him a quick kiss. “Okay, Thace, you’re carrying high so this should work. Lie down and prop up your shoulders on the pillows.” 

She promptly snatched the beads from Thace as he obeyed, and thrust them out to Kyle. “You know what to do, sweetie.” 

Then she leaned over Thace, nuzzling along his cheeks and neck until Thace was shivering and chirping for her. The first touch at his canal was startling, but so good. Something soft and flexible, like the tip of a cock, darting in and out, in and out. It was a tease, but drove Thace’s pleasure higher until he trilled from it. 

Kyle grunted from between Thace’s legs, and Krolia chirped. Thace felt her shift her weight backwards, so Kyle was probably doing something to her too. It was hard to focus with the pleasure from below and with Krolia’s nuzzling, but Thace didn’t care. He let himself float in the sensations, chirping and trilling encouragingly and nuzzling Krolia back. 

Then something stiff pressed in alongside whatever was teasing him. The stretch made Thace gasp, and both objects slid back and forth in counterpoint for a little while. He could almost peak from just this, but something else pressed in and—

Thace whimpered from the stretch. He liked a girthy cock, but this was more, almost overwhelming. Krolia crooned to him, soothing and steady, and he focused on her in order to relax. Almost as soon as he did, Thace felt a jolt of pleasure strong enough that he nearly peaked. 

Krolia grinned knowingly. “One good thing about human clawlessness, they can stretch you so beautifully. Ready for more?” 

More? But Thace nodded. “Yes, I. It’s so much—“ 

“Almost there. Beads next,” said Kyle, sounding thick. When Thace craned his neck to look, Kyle’s face was smeared with slick and the sight itself brought him even closer to peak. In the next moments, everything narrowed down to the pressure and movement at his canal. The beads felt so strange, a combination of flexible and resistant, and he had to clench his canal muscles rhythmically to help it along. When it reached his cervix, Thace trilled, gasped, trilled again. His peak hit with the force of a magnetic storm and Thace shuddered through it.

When he came down, Krolia nuzzled him and then leaned back. Thace mourned the loss, but she jerked her hips down, so her canal twitched against his cock. Thace felt almost dizzy with pleasure, but concentrated. It took two tries to thread his cock into Krolia’s entrance, and she trilled loudly when Thace found it. 

Then something thick and blunt pressed against the entrance to Thace’s canal. The stretch stole his breath, bordering on pain for a crystalized moment. Kyle’s scent rose, eclipsing the discomfort when it mingled with Krolia’s and Thace found the will to relax and once he did—

Krolia laughed knowingly at Thace’s shout and clenched her canal down. The pleasure was intense, lighting up every nerve pathyway. Thace had only shared sex with a pair once before, and it hadn’t been anywhere near this intense. 

Kyle and Krolia kissed, and then Thace leaned up on a whim to try it out. It cooled things a bit, but if Thace was being honest, he needed the backing off to make it through without peaking again too soon. 

He was mostly threaded up Krolia’s canal when Kyle started to move. Thace clenched down, trying to keep that thick cock inside him, and Kyle made a desperate, pleased noise. “That’s it, just like that. Tight little cunt, stuffed all the way with me. Come on, make those pretty noises for me.” 

Thace trilled as the motion resolved into thrust and withdraw, and each withdraw tugged on the beads just enough to feel fantastic. So this was what sex with a human was like. No wonder Krolia had liked sex with Kyle so much. Krolia’s canal was tight and rippling around his cock, her cervix opening for him, and their scents were mixing so _good_ —

Krolia peaked first, reaching down between her legs to give a little squeeze to the head of her cock, and also the base of Thace’s. The contractions of her peak brought Thace right to the edge, and then Kyle was shuddering, pressing his forehead down into Krolia’s shoulder. Thace felt a faint fluttering movement in his canal and realized that Kyle had peaked. 

That knowledge and the shifting of the beads was enough to bring Thace over. His peak crested more slowly this time, canal then cock. Kyle muttered something reverent as Thace’s canal clenched down, and Krolia’s scent went warm as Thace spilled into her womb and the lock began. 

For a few breaths they held still. Thace melted into the pillows, and watched as Krolia and Kyle nuzzled and stroked each other. Then she smiled down at Thace and nudged Kyle’s hand around her so he could brush his fingertips over the bottom of Thace’s pouch. 

Awash in contentment, Thace let his eyes close, savoring this moment with his partners and his joey. The joey had gone quiet and smelled contented during the sex, but now stretched, and Thace knew without looking that it had gotten a hand over the pouch rim again. 

Kyle gasped, and Thace was dimly aware of the movement, and the spike of joy from the joey’s scent. When Thace looked, the joey’s tiny furred hand was gripped tightly around just the very tips of Krulia’s and Kyle’s fingers. Thace smiled at them and brushed over the precious point of contact with his thumb. 

So very softly, Krolia said, “how about we name it Yorak? Strong ambition; it’s a good name for a precocious joey.” 

“Alright, maybe as a middle name. I’m not sure Yorak sounds like human names.” He paused, brows furrowed, “didn’t you say once that the joey would probably become a boy? How about Keith? That was my granpop’s name.” 

“Keith,” Thace said, testing it out on his tongue. It didn’t sound bad, and if their joey had Yorak as a middle name, it would neatly solve the problem of humans’ gender-based names. “I like it, and if our joey doesn’t end up a male identifying, it can choose to go by Yorak later.” 

Krolia nipped at Kyle’s ear. “Switch is probably more likely at this point, but I like it. My pouch-mother was Koreeth, and it sounds almost like that.” 

A subtle tension faded from the atmosphere as Kyle chuckled. “Then it’s settled. Welcome to the world Keith Yorak Kogane.” 

The joey— Keith kicked and its scent sparked with joy again. Thace smiled. “I think Keith approves.”


	9. Not Exactly A Birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a new chapter because my fic inspired art! It's so awesome, and everyone should go check it out and shower the artist with praise! 
> 
> [noogenesis drew this and it's so adorable!](http://noogenesis.tumblr.com/post/176194665016/calibratingentropy-asked-me-to-post-this-sketch-i)
> 
> Fun facts:  
> \--Pronouns! In this universe, Galran has seven separate pronouns, and each can actually be inflected in different ways to give nuance and flavor. And universal translators freak out at them, because there's just not that many pronouns in most other languages. In this chapter Thace switches from the pronoun for dependent organisms (fetuses/eggs/joeys/etc) which the translator finally decided was "it" to the pronoun for children, indicating they don't have a sex/gender yet, which becomes "they" in English.  
> \--Additional fact: Galran doesn't have a separate category of pronouns for inanimate objects and things like that. So each thing gets one of the other seven, and which gets what pronoun is codified in the language. Weapons and fighters get "she" and warships that carry a compliment of fighters, or military transports get "he." Civilian cargo-ships get the pronoun for carriers, which would also end up as "they" in English (at least 21st century English).

The dawn came too soon, and Krolia lingered as long as she could. They exchanged scent and hugged, and Kyle had tears in his eyes. Thace keened his grief and the joey cast up distressed scent cues. But Krolia could only leave her blade behind and promise to send messages as often as she could. It was too dangerous for her to stay. Another scouting team would surely find the Lion, and once they did the Empire would destroy everything. That didn’t make her leaving any easier. 

For weeks Keith was inconsolable, throwing out distress at the slightest provocation and listless otherwise. Thace’s own grief wasn’t helping, and Kyle threw himself into work, and when he wasn’t at work, he busied himself with upgrading the hoverbike. 

It was incredibly lonely, even putting aside Krolia’s absence that stung like a wound rubbed with salt. Everything came to a head on one of Colleen’s visits. Thace had been aware of her concern for a couple visits now, but she finally put her hands on her hips and marched right out of the room. She came back a few minutes later, dragging Kyle by the ear. 

“I know you go to ground when you’re hurting, Kyle. Hell, I was the one bringing you food when you blamed yourself for the Jupiter mission going south on the return trip. But you can’t do that anymore. You’ve got Keith to take care of, and children need you to be _there_.” 

Kyle flinched, and then nodded sadly. “I know. I get it. I gotta be there for my kid, and provide for him even if I’m hurting.”

Thace leaned over and hugged Kyle, hoping this would be an end to the isolation. “Grief is easier when it’s shared. I miss her too.” 

“I know you do, Thace. I—“ Kyle stopped, started again, and then huffed out a sigh. “I know you and Krolia don’t have a choice. I know how important it is, that you’re gonna be risking your lives to keep Earth safe. I just… I think about being all alone with a tiny, innocent life depending all on me, and it’s scary as hell.” 

If only there was a way to reassure Kyle that he’d succeed. Thace tightened his arms in lieu of that. “You’re a good man; I know you’ll triumph.” 

Kyle gave a thin smile. “I can’t fail, I just gotta… Maybe I should consider going back to the Garrison. They sure as hell pay a lot better than contracting and volunteering at the fire department on weekends.” 

“Sam would vouch for you, if it came to that,” Colleen said. 

That reminded Thace… “If you were with them, why did you leave?”

“They said my designs for the Jupiter mission were unnecessary, had too many redundant systems, and were too expensive, so they picked a different one,” Kyle said with a caustic undertone to his voice, “They wouldn’t listen when I told them it’d drastically increase the chances of sudden engine burnout, and with their chosen design, tying in the life support to the engines with only a single backup, they were just asking for losing an entire mission. I raised a public stink with the press about it, and not two months into the return trip from Jupiter, the worst happened. Three lives lost because the Garrison wouldn’t spend a couple extra million on additional safeties. Akira was one of my best friends, but Sam was the only one who listened when I warned them.” 

“Sam and I will forever be grateful to you but I think the Garrison will be more inclined to listen after everything.” Colleen gave Kyle a sad smile and reached out to grip his shoulder. 

“Once a penny pinching organization, always one, but maybe I can save a couple lives that would be lost without my input.” Kyle ran hands through his hair. “Alright, I’ll give ‘em a call, and I’ll work on being here more for you and Keith.”

* * *

Thace noticed the difference when Kyle went back to the Garrison, and cut down his volunteer days to just Sunday. He was gone for more predictable time periods, and started coming home with work on a comparatively advanced computer system. Thace offered advice when he didn’t think it would be too far past the humans’ technology level, and quickly learned why Krolia was so impressed with Kyle’s skill. He was an excellent engineer, and caught on to concepts like he’d worked with them his entire life. Discussing basic interstellar travel with Kyle was a delightful way to pass the time. 

Krolia’s absence still grated on them both, but she managed to get a message to them after only a few more weeks. Her first message was short, indicating that she’d been settled into Warlord Granveig’s fleet as an officer and would probably be able to send messages more frequently in the future. 

They spent an hour trying to condense everything they wanted to tell Krolia into a single message. In the end neither Kyle nor Thace was entirely satisfied with what had to be left out but the message was sent. 

It was nearing the colder season and Keith entered another growth spurt. Thace finally admitted that the time was soon and started preparations. Kyle just gave him strange looks. "Do I want to know the reason behind the cleaning and redecorating with soft things spree?"

Thace put a hand down to cradle Keith who was squirming like usual. His joey was getting so big and strong. "Keith will start making forays out of the pouch soon. Almost certainly before the end of this month."

Kyle’s scent went bright with eagerness. “So, like his birthday, sort of?” 

“Technically, Keith’s birthday was several months ago,” Thace said with a short laugh, “and Galra celebrate an independence day, which is when the joey leaves the pouch permanently. Keith’s will probably come early by necessity, as most joeys are weaned off milk for more than an Earth year before they leave the pouch for good.” 

“Well, Keith’s gonna get a birthday, I guess, because it’s about the right time since Krolia discovered she was pregnant.” Kyle paused and took a look at Thace’s stomach. “If he gets much bigger before then, he’ll be record setting for a human baby.”

Thace just smiled and shrugged. He couldn’t help that Keith was maturing mostly like a Galra, although Keith was actually on the small side for a Galra joey right now. Kyle didn’t need to know that, though, so Thace leaned in for a goodbye nuzzle to see Kyle off for work. They hadn’t had sex again (it felt wrong, without Krolia there), but Thace was pretty sure they both got a measure of comfort from sharing the mattress, and Kyle’s scent always went soothed and fond at the nuzzles. 

Kyle went out the door and then paused. “But when he comes out, I wanna know so I can be there.” 

“I’ll do my best,” Thace promised.

* * *

It was nearing the human holiday of Halloween, which Thace understood as a festival for children, when Keith disconnected from the teat for the first time, and started struggling to push itself (themself, now) up. The tugs on his pouch fur from tiny fingers and toes were almost painful, but more than that, Thace was overjoyed. He dialed Kyle’s personal communicator as quickly as he could, cursing the small size and his claws. After two slips, he got the call dialed. “Kyle! Keith is coming out.” 

“My baby boy’s coming now? _Now_ now?” Something crashed in the background and Kyle swore. 

Thace overheard another voice telling Kyle to just go before he broke something in ‘new father jitters’ and sighed in relief. Good, Kyle would be home soon enough. “Yes, now. Don’t be reckless when you come home.” 

Kyle hung up abruptly instead of saying goodbye. Thace just shook his head and reclined slightly on the couch. He didn’t want to tire Keith out before they climbed out of the pouch, but at the same time, conquering the challenge of climbing on their own was important. 

The passage of time faded, as Thace cooed and softly encouraged Keith’s progress. Keith stopped to rest, halfway out, and then struggled upward again, using their more developed arms to pull themself along on their stomach. Thace had gotten peaks of Keith at every grooming, but this was the first time he’d seen his joey fully. The joey’s first coat was fluffy and glossy, prismatic black, but Keith had Krolia’s almost magenta streak down their spine, although the color started lower down, and faded to proper purple about halfway, instead of being interspersed with purple streaks like hers. Keith’s eyes were a shade of purple too, probably only open for a day or two at this point, and Thace felt profound relief on seeing that Keith had white sclera. Yellow would be too obviously inhuman and then Thace would have to take Keith away. 

Keith had just settled on Thace’s chest over his syrinx, drawn to the cooing sound like most joeys, when the door slammed open. Keith curled into a protective ball, scent cue going afraid, and Thace immediately shielded his joey with his hands. 

Kyle’s scent went regretful and he ran his hands through his hair. “Oh geez, did I scare him? Oh no, baby boy. It’s just papa. Papa’s here.” 

The soft, higher pitch to Kyle’s voice went a long way to soothe Keith, as did the scent. Keith lifted themself up and blinked at Kyle, scent smoothing and brightening with recognition. Knowing Kyle couldn’t smell it, Thace gestured. “Keith’s calm now; come look at your joey.” 

In two seconds, Kyle was crouched at Thace’s side, reaching out a tentative finger to stroke Keith’s soft fur. “He’s so big for a human baby, but somehow he looks like a kitten. Are you sure he’s not going to keep the fur?” 

“Even scaled Galra have a fur coat as a pouch-bound joey, and a large percentage of non-scaled Galra have fur so fine it’s all but invisible next to their skin. We should know by the time they’re weaned.” Thace had explained it before, but Kyle hadn’t believed it then, and didn’t believe it now, from his smell. 

But he smiled at Thace anyway. “I have a kid. A baby boy. And I know Galra don’t do it, but could you please use he? It and they just sound so weird, now that he’s out here with us. People will ask questions.” 

Thace sighed, and wondered briefly what problems it would cause for Keith in the future. But for Kyle’s sake, and so Keith could fit in with humans, he’d do it. “Alright, he then. Do you want to hold him for a moment? He probably won’t tolerate it long, but I know you’ve been looking forward to it.” 

Kyle nodded, tears in his eyes, and Thace lifted Keith up. The joey squirmed, but settled as soon as he was against Kyle’s chest. It had to be the most beautiful thing Thace had ever seen and Thace would hold the sight in his memory for the rest of his life.


	10. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Thank you for the comments and kudos everyone! No special fast facts for this one, just another appearance by tiny!Shiro, because tiny!Shiro is adorable.

Kyle had been in a bright and mischievous mood all morning and he had been conspiring with Colleen about something for days, but Thace didn’t care. Thace had been preoccupied with helping Keith stretch and practice moving around with his out of pouch time. Grooming was much easier with Keith able to come out of the pouch, if nothing else. 

Thace had exercised and checked for messages twice already, and was feeling a little bit restless, but there had been more activity in the desert lately. It had peaked shortly after Krolia left, and just hadn’t gone down. Kyle had muttered something about UFO nuts when Thace had raised his concerns. Because of that, though, Thace was being more cautious about venturing out, so he was almost bored enough to surprise Kyle with cooking something experimental for dinner. (Human tastes, Thace had found, ran very different to Galra tastes.)

But now Kyle was waltzing through the door, bags in hands and grinning. “So,” he began, trying to sound casual but failing entirely to hide the excitement, “some folks at the Garrison are hosting a costume party. If the little guy is feeling up to be out of the pouch for a bit, I thought we’d drop in. Most of the parents among the staff are bringing their kids and I _know_ you’re bored.” 

Thace side-eyed Kyle. “You’re up to something.” 

“Maybe just a little, but it’ll be fun, I swear.” Kyle smiled innocently, but his eyes and scent betrayed him. 

“What is it?” Thace probably would go along with it just for something to do, but he did his best to convey his suspicion of the whole affair. 

Kyle responded by pulling out a bundle of purple fabric. “So it was originally just a costume for expecting moms, but Colleen and I dyed it to match you. It’s not perfect, but it’s a Halloween costume, not Hollywood.” 

He followed it up by pulling out something brown. “And our best idea for Keith was Wicket, from Star Wars. Remember that?” 

Thace remembered those movies, and how he’d cringed at the fact that the Emperor in those was essentially a Druid, but with less teleporting. He didn’t remember the name though, at least until Kyle chirped “Ewoks!” 

_Oh_ , those. They reminded Thace of Ayrtlucks, although smaller, and less venomous. But Keith’s joey fur did remind Thace of the baby Ewok in the film, a little bit, so it was a suitable costume. 

Thace’s costume, on the other hand, was… less. He got the idea behind it, and it was a brilliant way to hide his pouch in plain sight, but it also had floppy fabric ‘ears’ on top, and a stuffed tail hanging off the back. Thace didn’t mind the dress and apron with ‘baby on board’ written across the chest, and approved of how the costume had been altered so that the fake pouch was gone, and the edges tucked nicely around his actual pouch. The touches of purple on his face were actually clever, making it look like he’d painted his skin to match the costume instead of the other way around. But none of that made up for the way the costume kept pulling at him, and the annoyance of the additions.

So he glared at Kyle and shimmied his hips. “ _This_ is going to drive me to distraction in short order, and the ears tickle.” 

The tail did indeed bump against the backs of his knees in a very frustrating way, but Kyle was absolutely not sorry. “Aww, but you make a cute purple space kangaroo.” 

Thace stuck out his tongue, and set about coaxing Keith out of the pouch and into the costume. Keith, who’d never had a stitch of clothing on in his life, objected to the idea, and threw out angry scent cues. 

Colleen’s arrival saved the day, because somehow she was able to charm Keith into the costume. She cooed in the human way and took pictures, and then they were off. 

There were many people in the crowd, with the scents of different kinds of foods. Most of them sweet, which was unfortunate. Keith flinched and curled up in the blankets he’d been swaddled in, and Thace retreated to a quiet corner almost immediately and cooed and warbled until Keith calmed. Kyle came by in his costume (which was essentially normal clothes) that was supposed to be a famous man from Australia who’d worked with animals his entire life, but at Thace’s encouragement went to mingle. 

There were children of various ages, but most didn’t pay him much attention, more interested in games and sweets, but then a small child in bright purple with a mask suddenly ran over, dragging along a friend who was dressed in what Thace recognized as a facsimile of a space suit. It took a moment for Thace to be able to sort out the scents and recognize the children as Takashi and Matt. He knelt down to be closer to their level and smiled. “Hello, Takashi. Matt. Your costumes are good.” 

Matt beamed through the plastic faceplate of his costume. “I’m gonna be a real astronaut someday, but for now, Mom and Dad helped me make an au— real looking costume! And Mom said you had your baby!” 

“Can we see?” Takashi chimed in, pulling off his own masked helmet. 

Keith smelled unsure, but was still mostly calm enough that Thace risked tilting the bundle of blankets so they could see. “This is Keith. He’s dressed as a baby Ewok tonight.” 

Matt squealed in delight. “I saw that movie! He’s so fluffy, like a real Ewok.” 

Keith flinched, but Takashi was almost solemn as he peaked up into the blankets. “Hi Keith. I’m Takashi, and I’m gonna protect you, because I’m gonna be a Staranger when I grow up.”

He paused and tilted his head. “And maybe an astronaut with Matt, because we’re gonna be best friends forever.” 

Keith blinked slowly at Takashi, smelling of interest and calm, and Thace smiled at the children even more. “I’m sure you two will travel farther than humans have ever been, and also grow up to be protectors.” 

Both boys beamed, but a call went out for another game to start and they scampered off. Keith squirmed and sent out a scent cue informing Thace that he needed grooming. Thace took a moment to locate the restroom and slipped inside, for once very glad for the gift of a diaper bag, because it was convenient for storing cleaning cloths and solution. He was grooming Keith in the largest stall when he heard the door open and water run. The scent… Mako. 

Thace relieved himself to give himself a moment to prepare, but then Keith changed scent cues. Thace had quickly come to recognize this one as a desire to be back in the pouch. How he was going to explain that, Thace didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to sacrifice his joey’s comfort. 

Mako immediately smelled concerned when Thace came out of the stall to wash his hands. “Where is… in the costume?” 

Think. How could he— Hadn’t he seen pictures of humans carrying their babies strapped to their chests? Thace could use that. “Keith was fussing. At home I keep him wrapped up, next to my chest in a— ah—“

He wasn’t sure what the English term was and just gestured. Mako’s scent lit up with understanding, but she was still concerned. “Oh, a baby sling! But those are designed to keep the baby’s airway clear, and that costume might suffocate him.”

Thace felt a moment of irritation. His pouch was perfect for a joey’s breathing! But Mako was striding forward, and reaching for the pouch— Thace hissed and bared his teeth, only to regret it an instant later when Mako reared back. 

“What— Your teeth—“ 

Thace was wracking his brain for a reasonable explanation when Keith kicked and stretched, managing to get a hand up to pull the rim of Thace’s pouch down. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to fully display the pouch fur, and Keith, costume askew. He’d known from the start that the human disguises were poor, but he’d been lulled into complacency by escaping reveal for so long. Now it was all over. 

For a frozen moment, Thace and Mako just stared at each other, but Keith grew disinterested and twisted to start nursing. Even with the tension, the familiar suction was relaxing, and Thace couldn’t help a little sigh. 

Finally Mako found her voice. “Takashi… wasn’t wrong, that first day, was he?” 

The truth would be better, and Thace would just have to hope he could convince her to keep quiet. “I’m not from Earth originally, no.”

“Aliens, all this time—“ Mako said, then her expression sharpened. “Almost a year ago now, there was a meteor, and a burst of unusual electromagnetic patterns in the local area. That was a crash, and maybe a mayday, wasn’t it?” 

Close enough. Thace nodded in lieu of saying anything. If he didn’t have to explain, he could get away with omitting things. Mako’s brow continued to furrow. “Kyle said Leah was his girlfriend, and when she disappeared, he implied she was an illegal on the run from an oppressive regime, but I never quite understood why you were carrying the baby.” 

The question was clear enough in that statement, and Thace paused for a moment to consider what to say. “That’s acceptable as a simplified answer, and three parents are the norm for our species. Neither Kyle nor Leah were capable of nursing, not without long-term hormone treatments.” 

Mako was fascinated, clearly, and her tone was rambling. “What I wouldn’t give to have some samples from you to test—“ 

Thace wasn’t hiding anymore so he felt no reluctance in baring his teeth at her again, and to her credit, she went contrite. “But I suppose that’s why you two were trying so hard to hide. So Keith is really Kyle’s? How is that even possible?”

Thace shrugged once. “Yes, and my species hybridizes well with many other species.” 

“Fascinating,” Mako began, and then sighed. “Are you going to keep to the secrecy?” 

“Every person that finds out adds to the risk. Discovery would lead to a life of scrutiny at best, and I don’t want that for my child. Neither does Kyle.” Thace splayed a hand protectively over his pouch, cradling Keith’s weight. He felt Keith stretch and shift to his favored sleeping position in response. 

“As much as it pains me as a scientist, I won’t tell anyone, even my husband. I understand wanting to protect your son, no matter how far.” Mako smelled solemn, but then her lip quirked up. “So, essentially marsupials, it seems? Kyle’s sense of humor at work, I see. Sometimes I wonder about that man.” 

It was Thace’s turn to quirk a smile. “He’s strange sometimes, but he’s a good man and I care about him. I couldn’t ask for a better partner.” 

“He is a good man; Kyle cares about people.” Mako crossed her arms over the black dress she was wearing (Thace couldn’t place the costume, although he thought Takatoshi was matching in his nice suit) and grinned. “I take it Keith isn’t going to come out anytime soon?” 

Thace shook his head. “He only just exited the pouch for the first time a few days ago; he’s not ready to be out for more than short periods.” 

Mako winked. “I’ll create a distraction and send Kyle out to you then. The baby needing quiet is a good excuse to leave early anyway.” 

Thace thanked her quietly, and managed to slip out unnoticed at the promised distraction.


	11. Threats of Exposure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternate title to this chapter is: "Thace Vs. UFO Hunters" 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments!

They got a response to their first message from Krolia a couple weeks later, and immediately recorded one back, so she could see Keith out of the pouch. Thace wanted to delete the messages, but Kyle refused, face stony. 

“Look,” he said, “assuming I don’t leave with you, which if Keith doesn’t lose the fur, I might have to, because I’m not leaving my son for anything less than saving the entire universe, then I want him to have some record of his moms, both of them. I know I won’t be able to explain things until he’s old enough to understand and keep his mouth shut about the alien thing, but when he is, I want to show him how much you both cared, and have explanations in your own words why you had to leave to protect me and him.”

It made sense, and Thace was terribly concerned about discovery, but he still wanted it in spite of that. “I understand, but we must also consider security. Do you have any technology that would be extremely difficult to get into?” 

Kyle thought for a few seconds. “Nothing’s impossible, if someone’s determined enough, but things like biometrics are harder to get past. Problem is, they’re expensive as hell and I don’t have that kind of cash. Buying something like that would also probably attract attention.” 

There was a solution, although it might well put Thace at risk later. “You won’t have to buy something. I have a box that i keep my most sensitive tools and armor in. Right now, it’s keyed to my handprint and DNA, and an additional pass code, but I can add yours and Keith’s to it and teach you the passcode. We can put everything in there to save for Keith later.” 

Kyle beamed, and leaned over to kiss Thace. They hadn’t attempted anything still, and the kiss soothed instead of lit up arousal, but Thace tipped Kyle’s chin with his hand and nuzzled. Kyle huffed, fondly exasperated, and then pulled back. “Go get that box.” 

The trip to his ship was a short one, but something made his mane prickle and stand on end. Thace dodged out of sight just in time. It was a pair of humans with some kind of video equipment, and they were talking about UFOs. Thace knew what they meant by that now, and something froze inside his chest. They couldn’t find his ship; he had to lead them away. But how? 

By falsifying a sighting, that was how. The ship had drones as standard issue, and maybe if he attached a light source… It was terribly difficult to judge size and distance against the empty sky. It might work. 

Thace dashed to the ship, actually breathing hard when he made it. Keith’s weight in the pouch was starting to tell on him and his slight softening (expected in a pouch-mother, but still frustrating) meant his stamina wasn’t at the level he’d been used to for so long. 

He worked as quickly as he could on the drone. He programmed it to be directly controlled, and attached a bright search light to the underside. The glaring red-purple light was certainly attention grabbing. And he was just in time, because he heard voices outside of where he’d hidden the ship. 

One was claiming that they’d seen lights in the sky nearby. The other was saying that aliens wouldn’t come back unless they had a reason. How right they both were. Thace sent up the drone, keeping the light off for the moment. When he thought he’d got a good angle, hopefully luring them away from his ship, he turned on the light. 

They were so excited, and something inside Thace went sick. If the Empire came, how many humans would fall prey to that curiosity and wonder about the universe? The Empire would murder so many, and they’d be crowding for a chance to see something new and be easy targets. 

Thace wasn’t going to let that happen. He led the humans deeper into the desert, getting the drone to its maximum altitude before shutting the light off. The humans were laughing, congratulating each other, and as Thace had guessed, turned away, back to civilization. After all, they’d found something. 

Thace spent some time making sure the ship was as hidden as he could make it before returning with the box. 

He got back to Kyle’s little house to find Kyle pacing. “Where were you?”

“I— My ship was almost found. I faked a sighting well enough to lead them away, but…” Thace trailed off, fear beating in his chest. If he was discovered, what would the reactions of humans as whole be? A spotlight? Being ‘urged’ to participate in scientific discovery? As much as it was a theme in human fiction, Thace didn’t think they’d go so far as to imprison him, but attempted coercion? Yes.

If he was discovered, what would life for Keith be like? Thace couldn’t let it happen. Kyle was of the same mind, and swore loudly. “If they were on my goddamned property, I’m gonna get my gun—“

Thace grabbed onto him. “Not violence— Just… We’re safe for now. Stay. Please?” 

The stress had upset Keith, and Thace wasn’t feeling much better. Kyle subsided and turned in the embrace to kiss him. For once he seemed to have caught onto the actual use of kissing. 

Soothed, but still startling at every sound outside, Thace let himself be guided down to the mattress. Kissing changed to nuzzling, to Kyle grunting against Thace’s back as they rocked together. 

Thace managed to find a position on his elbows and knees that let Keith’s weight settle comfortably. Kyle groaned at the sight. “Showing off that pretty cunt for me like that—“

Fingers found his canal and Thace trilled for it. He surrendered to the sensations and nothing mattered but the increasing stretch and Kyle’s breath disturbing his fur. Warm, cool, warm— _Wet_. 

Kyle leaned over his back and rutted hard enough to rock Thace forward. He welcomed the intense stretch, even if it left the depths of his canal empty. He could peak from this. He could—

“Kyle, please— My cock, please!” 

Kyle froze for just a fraction of a tick, and then moaned, low and loud. “Shit, your cock— God, feels good. Your cock is so wet.”

He started mumbling nonsense after that, and Thace was too lost in the pleasure to make sense of it anyway. His peak came with Kyle’s cock stretching him to his limits and Kyle’s fingers squeezing over his cock. 

In the aftermath, when Kyle’s softened cock slipped out, Kyle groaned. “Shit. That was hot.” 

Thace didn’t have much energy, but he raised an eyebrow. “So I take it that you like my cock?” 

It had been hanging in the back of his mind for months and months now, and it was a relief when Kyle laughed and curled closer. “Sure did. Guess I really ain’t as straight as I thought.” 

Then he licked slick and semen from his fingers and Thace grimaced. Kyle winked. “And we’ll work on your reaction to kisses; don’t you worry.” 

Thace got halfway to bopping him upside the head with the pillow before he decided it was too much effort.

* * *

But the next day, Kyle came home grim. “The UFO hunters are going wild. At least one expert claims that the wavelengths of that light can’t be produced by any combination of elements found on Earth. What are we gonna do?” 

Thace swallowed and pressed his hands to Keith’s sleeping form. “We need to hide my ship far enough from here that the hunters won’t come across it in their search.” 

Kyle took a deep breath. “That’ll make it harder to get back and forth, won’t it?” 

“I’ll have to make fewer visits, yes, and it will be more risk. But I see no better option.” Thace didn’t like the idea very much, but they were really caught in a difficult position. 

“Alright, so where we gonna hide it? There ain’t many good places out here.” Kyle ran his hands through his hair, pulling out strands, and Thace fought the urge to comfort. 

Where _could_ they hide the ship? Kyle wasn’t wrong. There wasn’t a plethora of caves— “With the Lion. Krolia showed me her scans of the rock formations; we can get the ship in. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but my skills are up to the challenge.” 

Kyle nodded once. “I’ll fly over on my hoverbike and bring you home.” 

Thace kissed him and left before he could be tempted to linger. The kiss soothed some of the nerves, and he fired up the ship with little trouble. He’d just have to dim any exterior illumination and fly low. If they couldn’t get a trajectory, they couldn’t track him to the Lion caves. 

It was nerve wracking, not because of the flying itself but the threat of being seen. Still, it was only a few minutes of Earth time that Thace was airborne before he found the entrance he was looking for. It was a tighter fit than he’d expected, and Thace had to take a few moments just to breathe away the adrenaline when he landed. 

The sound of water drew him, and he pulled out the communications device Kyle had pressed into his hand as he did so. The signal wasn’t great but Kyle’s voice crackled on the other end. Thace smiled. “I’ve found a water source and I’m following it now. If I’m right, there should be a small tunnel leading down from where the carvings are.” 

“I found it,” Kyle said, “but damn is it gonna be a climb. I’ll meet you down there. Never know when we might need a secure water source.” 

Thace didn’t answer, because in front of him, surrounded in a particle barrier was something he’d never thought he’d see. One of the Voltron Lions, as blue as an ocean (well, one composed of water, anyway) and humbling in its dignity. Something about it made Keith stir, and when his joey climbed over the pouch rim, Thace took Keith in his arms and walked to the barrier. 

It didn’t open when he touched it, but he hadn’t expected it to. Only Sendak and Haxus were allowed near the Red Lion after it had been found (Sendak had seemed to think he could force the Lion to submit to his will) but word of the barrier’s refusal to fall, even under weapons fire, had spread. 

A soft curse signaled Kyle’s arrival, and his breaths puffed out of his chest as he came up behind Thace. “Holy shit, that really is a Lion. What the hell.” 

Keith, scent bright with interest, reached out tiny hands to the barrier, and it didn’t fall, but for a moment Thace was _sure_ that the Lion was awake and watching them. No, not them. Keith. 

Thace felt a surge of protectiveness over his joey, and bumped his shoulder with Kyle’s. “Let’s not linger.” 

Kyle nodded absently and they started on the difficult climb back up to the entrance cave.


	12. Growing Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter! I'm going to be putting epilogue as its own short fic, because it's... darker. We'll go with that. 
> 
> Fun facts: (the following are typical Galra development. Keith is developing more slowly than a full Galra in general, but in some ways, much more quickly than a human)  
>  -Joeys are nursed in a pouch until they are effectively late toddler-age, during which time they transition entirely to solid food. They may continue returning to the pouch to sleep until the equivalent of four or five. Galra joeys grow very quickly at first until first temporary emergence, and then slow growth drastically until out of the pouch entirely, at which point they go through another big growth spurt.   
> -Speech development is late, comparatively. Joeys communicate entirely through scent for the first several months, and then add syrinx vocalizations when that organ develops fully (shortly after first temporary emergence from the pouch). Vocal folds don't fully develop until much later, and joeys usually don't utter the first word until about 4-5 years, but then develop full speech very quickly after that.  
> -Gross and fine motor skills begin developing very quickly after hatching, and joeys can usually crawl on their own within a couple weeks after exiting the pouch for the first time, and have the motor control and ability to walk and run at equivalent of about 6-8 months for a human baby. Fine motor control develops similarly fast.  
> -It's possible to wean a joey early, as soon as a single Earth year after birth (once the milk teeth have come in) but very much not recommended for good growth and development. On the other hand, if a joey starts showing disinterest in nursing, it's not a good idea to try to coax them into nursing longer. Some joeys do wean themselves comparatively early.   
> -Likewise, it's possible to pouch-wean at the same time as weaning off milk, but the general consensus is that it's similarly bad for the child.   
> -Galra have three sets of teeth in their lifetime. Milk-teeth are actually more for a joey's self-defense than eating, and the canines are the first to come in. Incisors are the very last. Most of the teeth are sharp little needles, or built to tear. The second set of teeth come in during early to mid-childhood (about when a human's adult teeth come in) and contain actual molars (although full Galra molars are closer to a cat's than a human's). The last set of teeth come in during the last growth spurt in a young adult Galra, usually around or slightly after sexual differentiation. Occasionally a Galra who loses a tooth young will regrow it, but it's not common enough to be expected.

Things settled into a routine that was bittersweet for the ending that was creeping up on them. There were a few more messages from Krolia, and at every trip to his ship, Thace found himself standing in front of the Lion, cradling Keith. 

And Keith… He grew. He fully mastered climbing out of the pouch without any aid, and then crawling, and by the time what Kyle called Spring (Thace hadn’t noticed a difference in the weather) rolled around, he was unsteadily walking around the house. 

Kyle was getting increasingly anxious over the fact that Keith was completely silent, and Thace’s explanations of child development didn’t help. Kyle understood, but he was terribly worried about interaction with other children, muttering about school. 

It was Colleen who brought a solution to their attention. She showed up with some books and videos one day and cracked one open after giving both Thace and Kyle a hug. “Sign language,” she said cheerfully. 

Thace had no idea what she meant, but Kyle’s face went slack, and then he smiled. “That… might work. Do you think he can manage it?”

It took a bit of explanation before Thace understood that it was a language of gestures for those who either couldn’t speak or hear, but it made sense. Keith had a fairly good grasp of fine motor control for his age, and in fact was precocious with it. So Thace nodded and set about learning the gestures with Kyle. 

It took a few weeks of intense study but Thace felt confident in starting to include the gestures along with his speech. It was tricky because English and Galran and Sign had completely different syntax and rhythms, but Keith started signing back. It was just simple words at first. Mama, Papa, out, in, and the like. But Thace felt like he was glowing every time his joey used one. Such a smart, precocious joey.

* * *

A sharp pain in his teat startled Thace awake with a gasp. Keith’s scent was full of pain, and there was a tiny, high pitched squeak. From his pouch?

_From his pouch_. Kyle startled awake a moment after, leaning over Thace’s shoulder (in spite of being smaller, he insisted on trying to curl around Thace anyway; it was charming) and mumbling in sleep-tinged worry. “What’s wrong? What happened?” 

Now that he’d had a moment, Thace had a good idea what was happening, and set about coaxing Keith up onto his chest. Keith pressed his little face (the joey fur was thinning out in spots, leaving his face and limbs bare) over Thace’s syrinx and made that little squeak again. It wasn’t a full fledged distress squeak yet; Keith wouldn’t develop the syrinx control for different sounds for a while.

It was still enough to startle Kyle. “Did he just—?”

“His syrinx has developed enough for first sounds,” Thace said in between bursts of warbling, and he touched his thumb to Keith’s chin. Almost immediately Keith shifted to bite on it, and Thace felt little pricks against his skin, and hard points just underneath the surface of Keith’s gums. It stung, but better his thumb than his tender teat. “He’s started teething too; first teeth are an ordeal.” 

Kyle got up and turned on the light. Keith tried to bite him too, smelling of pain and frustration. He signed “ow” several times, and all Thace could do was warble softly. 

It was enough for Kyle to get up and start searching through the collection of baby things, but he quickly groaned. “I can’t believe we don’t have a single teething ring. I’m calling Colleen.” 

“Kyle, it’s the middle of the night.” Thace glanced at the clock. Actually, three in the morning. But Kyle wasn’t listening. Thace got up with Keith held to his chest, and let his joey chew on his thumb for the moment. Keith’s emerging teeth didn’t hurt that much, and Thace knew that chewing helped them erupt faster.

Colleen answered, sounding like she was planning an annihilation. “Kyle, this had better be an emergency; do you know what time it is?”

“I don’t— Keith’s hurting and there are teeth and he’s _hurting_ and I don’t know what to do. I just— They’re like kitten teeth, and I didn’t think there’d be this many and what do I do?” Kyle was pacing back and forth, and he certainly sounded panicked. 

Thace heard, very faintly, another sleepy voice over the line. “I’m afraid you signed up for this, my dear. New parents panic over the smallest things, and you did say you were available night or day.” 

Colleen groaned. “I didn’t panic over everything with Matt!” 

Kyle flinched, and there was faint laughter. “Kyle’s an engineer, not a vet, darling. And if you remember, I did my fair share of needing to be talked down from panicking.” 

“You’re only so calm about this because you’re practically nocturnal already,” Colleen groused, but heaved a sigh into the phone. “All right. I’m guessing you didn’t think of getting any teething toys. I can bring a couple over from the clinic after work tomorrow.” 

Kyle was nodding along, forgetting she wasn’t there to see it, and Sam gasped in obviously theatric scandal, only to be shushed by Colleen, who muttered. “They were just perfect for Matt. Why do you think his favorite teether was shaped like a bone? Anyway, another thing that works great is putting a wet cloth in the freezer for a while. It’ll feel good to chew on and the cold will soothe pain and inflammation. Now for the love of god, let me go back to sleep.”

“Yes ma’am,” Kyle said. “But thanks, I mean it. I know you— She hung up on me!” 

“You did wake her up,” Thace said, as he went to the freezer. They didn’t have any cloths already, but it had reminded him that sometimes joeys could chew on soft-frozen food goo when they had sore mouths. Ice cubes were a little harder than that, but he thought he could rub it on Keith’s gums to soothe. 

Keith signed ‘ow’ again as Thace sat back down, and he settled Keith to sit on his knees, talking and signing slowly. “This will be cold, but make the ow better. But no biting, okay?” 

Keith squeaked and smelled miserable, but signed back yes. He jerked when the ice cube touched his mouth, but held still and the pain scent did fade a little. Thace was so focused on his task that he almost missed Kyle coming up behind him and barely contained a startle of his own. Kyle pressed a kiss against Thace’s cheek. “I’ve got some freezing. How’s he doing?”

“Almost asleep again.” Thace risked pulling the ice cube away and Keith didn’t protest. Instead he yawned and let Thace help him back into the pouch. 

“Good. We should too; Colleen’s going to flay us alive tomorrow.” Kyle flopped back onto the mattress and tugged on Thace. 

Thace went, allowing himself the comfort of the contact. “You only brought it on yourself. And we should add this to our message to Krolia.” 

“In the morning,” Kyle muttered.

* * *

Colleen didn’t flay them alive, and with her help, Keith’s teething went smoothly. It was hardly any time at all before he was trying solid foods, and Thace was trying just as hard to ignore what it meant.

But he couldn’t ignore it forever. Keith hadn’t nursed in over a day, and Thace’s teat was _sore_. It was expected, and natural, but at the same time, Thace couldn’t help wishing that Keith was still the tiny, pouch-bound joey that he’d cradled for so long. Weaning meant Keith would be without him far too soon. 

But Kyle was thrilled to see his child eating solid foods, even if he balked a little at all the meat. Thace had explained Galra nutrition, and Colleen had even done some tests which proved that Keith needed a mostly Galra diet, at least right now. Kyle had given in reluctantly, and it became almost a game to catch Kyle at sneaking extra vegetables onto Keith’s plate. Keith didn’t quite understand, but he had fun with it. So even with the gnawing unease, Thace was happy for the discomfort. 

Having to hide it in public was something else entirely though. They’d been invited to a picnic with the Holts and Shiroganes in the carefully watered park in town, one of the few places with abundant green in the desert. As much as Thace had been concerned over Keith being so far ahead of human children his apparent age in motor skills, he couldn’t deny that Keith did need to socialize, and Mako at least was in on the secret now. 

Keith was still dubious on the concept of clothes and had to be bribed into them, but the rest of his joey fur had shed, replaced by a thin layer of super fine hairs that were almost invisible. He looked so much like a human child now, if one ignored his sharp milk teeth. Humans, Thace now knew, couldn’t determine the prismatic shades to Keith’s black hair, and the few hairs on Keith’s back that were still magenta or purple were easily hidden. He’d fit in, which meant Thace was leaving without him, and soon. 

Keith was running with the two older children in some kind of impromptu game, in spite of being so much smaller. Sam was gaping at it, and Thace knew that a human child should barely be walking but he wasn’t going to corral Keith’s play either. 

Before Sam could ask the question on his mind, Colleen stepped in and offered him some more of the food, and asked a question that successfully distracted Takatoshi too. Thace leaned against Kyle, hiding a wince as his sore teat rubbed against the pouch fur and settled in to keep an eye on Keith. 

Sure enough, Keith gathered his little limbs, eyes flashing with intent when he found a place to hide and wait for one of the other boys to run past.

“Keith!” Thace called, but then switched to sign. “No biting.” 

Keith had sharp eyes, so he caught the gestures and signed back. “Mama! Small bite. No ow.” 

It was normal for joeys to bite and scratch in play. No Galra had needed those skills for hunting with their own claws and teeth in millennia, but there was no harm in letting it continue either. Except… humans didn’t bite, and had thin skin. Thace signed again. “No biting. Pouncing only.”

Keith pouted visibly, but obeyed and only pounced on Matt when he rounded the corner. Matt yelped, but was large enough to keep his feet against the assault, and so ended up laughing instead of upset. Keith squeaked, the slightly lower pitch he’d developed as a happy one, and butted their foreheads together. Then Takashi got in on it and tackled them both down. It was a bit exuberant, and Mako and Colleen both started up when Keith ended under the other boys, but both his scent and his squeaks were excited so Thace just snatched up another hot dog.

In short order, Keith ended up on top of the pile and clapped his hands together in victory. Hot dogs were some of his favorites though, and he’d only eaten a couple bites before dashing off to play, so when he saw what Thace had, he butted his forehead against the cheeks of the other two and came over. Thace leaned to press their foreheads together and then began feeding small bites to Keith in between a bite or two of his own. Keith burrowed happily into his lap and sighed in contentment around bites of his food. 

“I can’t believe he’s barely a year old and can run and jump like that; it’s amazing!” Sam said as he ladled another serving of peas onto his plate. 

“He’s a precocious tyke, I’ll say that much.” Kyle leaned over to ruffle Keith’s hair, and accepted a press of Keith’s forehead to his cheek. 

Matt and Takashi had come over, red faced but grinning, and both accepted plates of food. Takashi chewed slowly, and then asked. “Why does Keith do that? The forehead thing.” 

Thace smiled. “It’s his way of expressing affection for the people he cares about, like you would give someone a hug or hold their hand.” 

Takatoshi came back from his stint at the grill with another plate of burgers and hotdogs. Keith reached, but Kyle got a hand in the way, then gently signed hot and ow. Keith pouted but stopped his reaching. 

“Have the doctors figured out why he can’t speak?” Takatoshi asked. 

Kyle ran a hand through his hair. “Uh, bunch of medical terms that went over my head, but it’s probably temporary? He’s been able to make those squeaking noises for a couple months now. And signing works pretty well, if you ask me.” 

“I wanna learn sign,” Takashi announced suddenly, “I wanna talk how Keith talks and understand what he says.” 

Everyone smiled at that, a mixture of surprised and touched. Mako announced that she would definitely look into lessons, and then Matt announced that he wanted to learn too. 

Thace enjoyed the moment, feeling almost as much at home as he ever had at the Blade’s base, and the fact that he would have to leave soon hit him hard in that moment. He controlled his expression, but not his scent, and Keith sat up in concern. Small hands patted his cheeks, and Thace didn’t even care that it might smear his makeup. He hugged Keith tight and pressed his nose against Keith’s hair for a long moment. A second in, Kyle’s arms wrapped around them both.

The tension in the air lasted until Colleen suggested that they go and see if the pool was open. It was a good hike away from the picnicking spot, but ensured that everyone was ready to cool off when they got there. The boys cheered and dashed for the changing room but Keith shied away from the water, signing ‘bad smell.’ With a borrowed shirt to get wet in and a little convincing from Colleen, Keith finally decided to try the sprinkler system on the pool deck. In short order, all three were running through the sheets and cascades of gentle water, getting soaking wet but enjoying themselves. Takatoshi decided he’d go for a swim himself, and Sam took over supervising the children while Colleen got the rest of them cold drinks.

Her expression turned down as soon as she presented the bottle to Thace. “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” 

“It won’t be long before Keith is weaned completely… I have to.” Thace gritted his teeth against the grief, and leaned into Kyle’s offered embraced.

“Why can’t you stay?” Mako asked, brow furrowed, “You seem so happy here.” 

Well, it was about time she knew. Thace just hoped it wouldn’t frighten her enough to go for help from the Garrison. “The longer I stay, the more likely other Galra are to follow, and I pray that they never bother to enter this system, for Earth’s sake.” 

Mako gripped her bottle with pale knuckles. “What do you mean? —Wait, oppressive regime… You were a refugee, weren’t you? Will they really chase one person?”

Thace grimaced. “Not a refugee. I was, am, a spy for a resistance movement. My cover was that a partner of mine had a contraceptive failure and I was going on leave to carry, but if I don’t return, I’ll be labeled as a deserter. My former commander felt personally slighted enough just by the request for leave that I don’t doubt he’d hunt me down to the ends of the universe if he thought I was actually a deserter.” 

“And if he came here…” Mako said, a tremble in her voice.

“He’d conquer the planet just because he had no reason not to, and slaughter entire population centers if there was resistance. Some commanders would give Earth a chance to surrender first, but what I’ve learned of humans is that Earth would choose to fight, even impossibly outgunned.” Thace could’t say it, but it would probably spell the extinction or nearly so, of the species. 

“And we don’t have any kind of adequate defense,” Kyle muttered through clenched teeth. 

“No, not yet. But I’ve looked at your history. Humans have made so many advances, so quickly. It’s astounding how far you’ve come and now that you three know the threat, I know that you can devise a way to respond to it once I’ve gone.” 

“I think you’re overestimating the influence and skills of a vet, an astrochemist and a humble engineer,” Kyle said with no small amount of bite. 

Thace looked at them. “Am I?” 

They all looked back at Thace, then at each other, but before anyone could say anything, Keith came trotting over and plucked at Thace’s shirt with unhappy squeaks and scent. He was tired, and chilled by the water, and had probably picked up on the tension enough to want comfort. 

Thace retreated to the changing room to dry Keith off, and when his joey settled into his pouch for a nap, he pressed both hands against the weight. He was leaving to protect Keith. He _had to_ , for all the reasons he’d told the humans and more. 

But he wasn’t going to leave them defenseless. It was reckless, foolish, but he could give them schematics and formulas and coding. And…

“I will come back, as soon as I can,” Thace said. Before Keith was an adult, at the latest. Not even the Blades or the Empire could keep him away forever.


	13. Duty Is a Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! There is an epilogue that will go up as a separate fic within the week that gives an overview of Thace's life up until the events of season 2, and at some point I intend to gather together my ideas into a cohesive sequel.

The message from Kolivan had come in not even minutes after Kyle finished putting together his own personal communications array. It hadn’t even taken Thace doing more than letting Kyle take a look at the one in his ship. He’d taught Kyle the proper encoding while they were gathering parts and building it, so at the very least, they’d still be able to send messages until the relay failed. 

The message was chilling. Krolia’s report about the dangers of flying through the system had been doubted. A scouting party was being scent to ascertain both the dangers and the resources, but at least they weren’t looking for the Lion specifically. 

Thace had less than ten hours to be away and at the outer edges of the system if he wanted to intercept or get away before the scouts arrived, and his ship had no weapons. Kolivan had recommended retreat, but the weight, the grief in his voice told Thace that Kolivan knew. Thace wouldn’t do anything less than die defending his joey. 

Kyle made a broken sound in his throat, and kissed Thace so hard that their teeth clacked and blood bloomed. “No. You can’t. _No!_ ” 

“I will protect you and Keith, and protect this planet, or I will die trying.” But Thace kissed back; let himself be pulled down against the mattress. Although the empty ache had bothered Thace earlier, when Keith had curled up with his new favorite toy (a stuffed animal of something Kyle called a hippo) instead of coming back to the pouch, now he was glad for it. This was going to be their last time together, and Thace— He wanted Kyle’s scent soaked into every cell of his body, to carry that memory with him for as long as he could, death or otherwise. 

Kyle moaned as they pressed themselves together, and clothes came off. Kissing turned to nuzzling, and Thace put his hands everywhere he could reach. Kyle held on, arms and legs wrapping tight, and there was desperation in it. Thace rubbed his cheeks against Kyle’s throat, his chest, gripped hips hard enough to bruise, and slotted their hips together. The pressure, the want, finally had him unsheathing, and Kyle bucked at the slick sensation against his own swollen cock. 

Suddenly Thace regretted not finding the time to have sex more often, with as energetic as Keith had gotten. It was easier to just curl together to sleep, and Kyle had shied away from anything while Keith was in the pouch as he’d gotten more aware of his surroundings. 

But too late to worry about the past. Thace focused on the now, murmuring nonsense against Kyle’s skin as he considered whether to flip them, or straddle Kyle’s hips instead. Then Kyle grunted out something that took a minute for Thace to resolve into words. “Fuck me. Want your cock, just once—“ 

Thace might have balked (would have, even yesterday) at the thought of cloacal penetration without at least a protective barrier, but desperation and clawing grief sat heavy in his chest, so he chanted yes into Kyle’s mouth. For once, kissing didn’t dull the want, and Kyle’s fingers raked furrows down Thace’s shoulders. 

It was more like pressing up against a cervix than a canal entrance at first, tight and resisting. Thace had to break off the kiss at last when the soothing started to kick in, and reached between them to drag his knuckles over Kyle’s cock. That worked, and Kyle relaxed, breathing sharply out through his nose. Thace almost pulled back, thinking the natural slick produced by his cock wouldn’t be enough, but then Kyle whined in his throat and he was in. 

Kyle swore and arched, and his cock went a little soft, but his scent was still thick with arousal and interest. “Feels weird,” he admitted, “don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop. I—“ 

Thace twisted his cock, writhing it to stroke against the walls pressing in on him, and Kyle suddenly jerked. In the next moment he was babbling against Thace’s ears ‘therethereplease’ and shuddering with each movement. There was something at the spot that Thace was pressing against, like a little bump on the inner wall. Whatever it was, it was driving Kyle wild, and Thace twisted his cock to brush over it, again and again, driving his own pleasure higher as Kyle bucked and shivered beneath him. 

Finally he fell over, peaking sharply, and pressed his face against Kyle’s neck. Kyle’s scent was as thick with pleasure as Thace had ever smelt, but he shifted restlessly, nearly whimpering. A grind against Thace’s stomach explained it. Kyle was hard, but hadn’t peaked, at least not fully. He barely got his fingers around that thick cock (and damn her, Krolia had been right about ruining Thace for sex with anyone else) pressing it against his stomach, when Kyle peaked. His peak streaked white all over Thace’s stomach, and even up to both of their chests. Thace hadn’t known that humans produced that much semen; no wonder Krolia had conceived!

They lay together for a moment, Thace not wanting to leave the warmth of Kyle’s body (even if it wasn’t a real lock) but Thace had to reluctantly pull away before he resheathed. Thankfully the sanitation unit was right there, and it was the work of a moment to clean them both, and Thace gratefully collapsed beside Kyle, gathering him up. 

The silence was comfortable, but the slow despair was building. Finally Kyle breathed out in a soft groan, sounding both pleased and exhausted. “Holy hell. So that’s why so many guys like anal so much. Holy shit that was intense.” 

Thace pressed a kiss to Kyle’s chin and held tighter. They’d be separated so soon. “I’m glad I was able to give you such pleasure. I—“ 

He didn’t want to go. Kyle voiced the twin to that sentiment a moment later, and then sat up. His eyes were blazing and he smelled so fierce. “Take us with you. We’ll come to space with you and your Empire be damned. I’ve got skills; I can find a way to get by.” 

They both knew that he couldn’t be among the fleet, not as anything other than a slave (and oh, how ashamed Thace had felt, explaining how Galra enslaved everyone else, even if Kyle didn’t blame him personally) but there were places where Imperial control was thin on the ground, and other species flourished. It was possible. It was so very dangerous.

“Not— The scouting party will have weapons. I won’t take you into a firefight.” But after? Thace was so tempted. “Krolia will rip out my ovotestis with her teeth, but if that’s what you truly want, I’ll return for long enough to pick you up.”

‘If I survive’ was left unsaid and heavy between them. Kyle hesitated and then huffed a laugh. “I didn’t think you’d agree. I’ll… If I leave, once you’re gone, what’s keeping more scouting parties from being sent?”

“Nothing,” and the word sat in Thace’s mouth like lead. 

“I should stay, put my skills toward at least giving us a way to escape if we can’t fight back. Research planetary defenses. Something. But—“ The sob didn’t quite get released, but it strained Kyle’s throat, and they clung to each other. 

Duty was conflicting gravity wells, tearing them apart while it dragged them in opposite directions. Duty won. 

Kyle grimaced. “God, I’m gonna miss you. And I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you go out there against those bad guys without _some_ kind of defense. Just gotta think.” 

Thace managed a strained smile, heart in his throat. This was the lead-up to goodbye then.

* * *

Ten hours wasn’t enough time. Ten hours was agonizingly long. But for Thace, having an astrochemist as an ally proved useful. Mako had an idea, and access to materials to create a crude bomb that would function without atmosphere. Thace could eject it out of his airlock and hit the scouts with the resulting explosion. It probably wouldn’t do more that slow them down at best, but he’d worked out a plan to lure them into a dense portion of one of the astroid belts, and trusted his flying to be able to take them out. 

That was the easy part. The hard part was saying goodbye. Colleen burst into tears, and Kyle wasn’t far behind, but it was Keith’s reaction that had Thace keening. 

Keith clung, scrabbling with little fingers at Thace’s armor, and his squeaks made the jump from early squeaks to the squeak of a very distressed child. His scent was full of fear, and tears wet his face. He kept signing ‘Mama, Mama. Stay’ and it was all Thace could do not to swear he’d stay. 

Thace got down on his knees and forced his shaking fingers into the signs, speaking slowly and carefully. “Bad soldiers want to come and hurt you. I need to go fight them to keep you and your Papa safe.” 

Keith’s concept of hurt was more immediate than distant, vague threats from other people, and Thace could tell that he didn’t fully understand. He tried again. “I need you to protect your Papa for me. I will return to you, I swear. There will be time in between but I will.” 

That was enough. Keith had a concept of going away and coming back just from Kyle’s job. He wasn’t happy, but he understood and finally subsided. Kyle picked him up and hugged him close. His voice was rough. “You’d better not fucking die out there and break that promise. If you do, I swear I’ll find a way to drag your spirit or whatever out of the afterlife and lecture you silly.” 

“I won’t die; nothing could keep me from coming back.” It was, ultimately, a promise that Thace knew he couldn’t guarantee keeping, but now was not the time for realism. He needed to cling to that hope, that focus.

Kyle kissed him quick and deep, and then stepped back. Thace wanted to hold him but he knew why Kyle kept it short. It was hard enough to leave as it was. 

But Colleen and Mako both hugged him at once, and Thace was so deeply grateful that they knew him, not the human he’d had to pretend to be. Thace spoke past the pain. “Please, watch over them. Keep them safe, and from doing foolish things, in Kyle’s case. I can’t be there so I—“

Colleen shushed him. “We were already going to, Thace. And I’ll keep giving medical advice where I can. Lord knows that Keith definitely only passes for human at first glance. I shudder to think of how human doctors will try to label him based on his visible genitals.” 

Kyle had said the same thing while bathing Keith once (grooming with cloths was more sensible, but Keith had developed a liking of splashing) and said Keith looked more like a human female down there, even if he could recognize that he was male for a Galra. Thace had had to bite his tongue not to snap that no, Keith didn’t look male; he looked like an undifferentiated child. His cock and canal were still just barely buds of what they would become as an adult, and he hadn’t grown his pouch yet. And Thace privately feared that the tiny divot of a scar Colleen had had to give Keith to pose as an umbilical scar would interfere with that. 

But there was nothing Thace could do about that now, so he only nodded. “And make sure that Keith knows that if he ends up leaning female or in-between that it’s okay. Human gender is stupid.” 

He was a little bitter. Just a little. Colleen laughed and agreed though, and made her promise. Mako made her promise too, and said she would make sure to invite Kyle to dinner with them at least once a week. 

Then it was time to leave. If he delayed any longer he’d put the entire Earth at risk. The ship was cold and uncomfortable when Thace stepped inside, and he felt like the Lion was judging him, even through the stone. 

Thace shook it off, and made the trip to the outer system easily, and the bait, a ping of a destroyed fighter’s diagnostic system, was easily placed. He set up his ambush and waited. 

Just as Kolivan’s message indicated, two pings hit on his scanners not long after. They were in fighters, and had slightly less mass than Thace’s shuttle, but that didn’t mean a thing when both ships were better armed and armored. He’d have to time it perfectly.

Waiting had him snarling and grinding his teeth, but finally one of the fighters passed the position he’d marked as a likely approach through the asteroid field. Thace gripped the controls, breathed, and— Now!

The acceleration forced him back into the seat, and before the pilot could react, Thace pounded the control to open the airlock. The makeshift bomb exploded against the forward sensor array, but Thace didn’t have time to see how well it worked. The other fighter was already firing, and he had to push the shuttle to its limits to loop around the asteroids and avoid the shots at the same time.

As predicted, rather than try to communicate with their base, they sent jeers over the comms to Thace. They were too confident in victory, and too eager to go on the hunt. The fighters were technically more agile, but Thace was the better pilot, and although it strained him physically and mentally to force the shuttle into such tight maneuvers, the first mistake came in short order.

The lead fighter clipped on a smaller asteroid hard enough to send it into a spin. A larger asteroid proved its undoing. 

“You won’t be so lucky again,” a voice hissed over the comm. 

This was the better pilot, but the bomb had worked. There were telltale signs of overcompensation for damaged sensors. Thace could force a mistake, and there were two similarly sized asteroids circling each other in a tight orbit up ahead. The space between them was suicidally tight, and being even a degree off of course would surely end his life, but Thace was also willing to bet that the damaged sensors picked up the pair as a single asteroid. 

Thace punched his thrusters, gritted his teeth, and yanked on the control yoke. “For you, my partner. My joey.” 

The entry to the Blade’s base was not even so narrow, although Thace thought that the violent gravity fluctuations made the difficulty even out. Doing it in a civilian shuttle though? That made his heart pound out of his chest. Alarms went off; Thace swore he heard the wing scrape against the stone. 

There was a bright burst of light behind him. 

Thace was shaking as he piloted the shuttle clear of the field, and the emptiness of his pouch was almost a physical pain. He curled on himself and keened. 

How long he was like that, Thace wasn’t sure, but logic eventually wore through the wall of grief. He had to inform Kolivan of his survival. He had to inform _Kyle_. 

Kolivan was the easier of the two, and Thace buried his emotions in a curt update. Kyle’s message…

His voice stuttered, and the keen threatened again. “Kyle… I made it. I eliminated the scouts. I want to come back to you so much— But I will continue protecting Earth. I will turn the Empire’s attention elsewhere and sabotage attempts to the best of my ability. And I _will_ come back.” 

Thace couldn’t do it any longer and ended the transmission. He had one more transmission to make. Cloning one of the fighters’ signatures was easy enough, and a scrambler, courtesy of one of their best scientific minds, was able to take the voice sample and do a fair replication. 

Sending the faked distress signal, warning of sudden electromagnetic storms, and sensor dead zones in the asteroid belts, was a moment of grim satisfaction. There were few that would risk more scouts now. 

But his new mission was only beginning. Thace engaged the hyperdrive and shut off the comm. He wouldn’t look back. He _couldn’t._


End file.
